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The basics of unarmed stage combat are simple movements combined so as to give the illusion of violent contact. It is not violence itself. When I began teaching I developed the acronyms of VINO and SPAR so that the actors can evaluate themselves and others even in my absence. These are easy to remember and contain the basics of correct technique. They are also helpful in evaluating the work of other fight choreographers as you see them working with actors.
In order to have a successful simulation of something, you must understand what the reality is. You are taking a three-dimensional reality of an event, compressing it into two dimensions to understand what the audience really sees, and then pulling it back into three dimensions with all of the safety measures built in. And what makes stage combat possible is that the audience has no depth perception.
The first acronym is a reminder of the essence of what makes stage combat different and, we hope, safer than stunt work. These are principles to keep in mind before attempting to choreograph the fight.
V – victim stays in control
I – interactive flow of energy
N – non-contact techniques
O – off-line targets
In stage combat, the victim is the person who at any specific moment is the one who is on the receiving end of any intended violent action. This is not a “good-guy, bad-guy” designation, as it will switch many times during the course of the fight. The rule of having the victim of any simulation stay in absolute control must never be compromised in any way. This means that, for starters, the person who is receiving the simulation of violence is the first and final arbiter of how fast a technique is performed, when it is to begin, and even if it is to be performed at all. The victim is never pushed, never thrown, never pulled, never tripped, never slapped. The audience may think that it is seeing these things happen to a character, but the actors both know that the reality is something else entirely. And if during any performance the victim feels that the next simulation has any level of danger or even uncertainty, the technique is simply not performed.
Instead of merely trading techniques back and forth (“first I push you and then you punch me”), both actors must work together on each simulation to establish an interactive flow of energy which gives the audience the illusion of real action given and received during the fight. To accomplish this, each actor must be acutely observant of the minute movements which his or her partner brings to the simulation. Respecting the laws of physics and constantly adjusting the reactions are part of establishing a flow of energy, and in stage combat this flow is transferred in an intensely specific way from one character to another. This energy is first motivated by one character, translated into an aggressive intent, demonstrated through physical action, and then has a logical result for the intended recipient.
Whenever possible, try to find a non-contact technique for your simulation. Exhaust the possibilities. Even if you are working on a thrust stage or in the round, it is always possible to create the illusion of striking someone without actually having to make contact. Don’t give up; you will reduce the injury rate dramatically if you simply find a way to eliminate contact.
Always have the aggressive movement aimed to a target which is off-line of the victim. For example, instead of aiming for a person’s face for a face punch, the fist is directed to a spot just above the shoulder. Instead of running directly towards someone to grab him, run in a parallel path slightly upstage or downstage of your partner. Remember: audiences have no depth perception.
The other acronym comes in when it is time to actually work out and perform the simulation. SPAR helps us break down every simulation into its core elements. When a fight looks phony or fuzzy, it’s usually because one of these elements has been rushed or forgotten.
S – safety set-up
P – picture
A – action
R– reaction
Any simulation begins with a set-up. This is the moment in which both actors establish the safe distance and position they require, as well as the moment they make eye-contact with each other to make sure that they are both ready for the simulation. The feet are placed in position, and must not move until the action is complete. They might also establish physical contact as well, but that contact is not part of the illusion of the violent action. The audience is not aware of a violent action at this point, so if either actor feels that something isn’t right, he or she can simply step back and either wait for the danger to pass or move on to the next safe bit of business. Inhale during the set-up
The picture is what we show to the audience so that they know what it is they are supposed to believe they are about to see. They must have a clear moment where, for a split second, they make a mental note that someone is about to be hit or kicked or whatever. Without the picture, they will not understand the simulation.
The action is the movement that the audience perceives to be violent, often accompanied by a slapping or striking sound but always accompanied be the exhalation of breath and sound from both actors. Ironically, the audience can rarely focus on this movement, so it is here where, magician-like, we can fool the audience into believing what we want them to believe. The action includes the theoretical point of impact between the participants, and this impact point is always hidden from the audience’s view. Exhale during the action.
After the movement is executed, an appropriate reaction from both participants is necessary for the audience to believe the action. The reaction is both physical and emotional. It includes a final split-second “pose” from the aggressor in order to show the audience what they are supposed to have witnessed. It also must be filled with all of the physiological responses that occur when violent actions happen, as well as be truthful to the inevitable relationship change between the characters.
Stage Directions
I’ll be using the common stage terminology in order to explain relative actor positions for these moves. Most of you know all of this, but I just want to make sure that we’re all on the same page here, so I’ll very briefly run through the ones I’ll use.
Stage Right – relative to the actor when on stage looking out towards the audience, the right side of the performance area. (Also known as house left)
Stage Left – relative to the actor when on stage looking out towards the audience, the left side of the performance area. (Also known as house right)
Up Stage – towards the back of the performance area, away from the audience.
Down Stage – towards the audience, approaching the front of the performance area.
Those are the terms that describe where the actor should be or move to, but there also exist terms used to describe which way the actor should turn his/her body. Full front is the actor standing with his/her body placement completely open to the audience, whereas full back of course is the opposite. When the actor turns 90 degrees toward stage right it is called profile right or half right, (which is ironic because the audience is then looking at the actor’s left profile), and the mid-positions between those are called quarter right and three-quarter right. And then of course all of these have corresponding positions when facing stage left.
I’ll also be using some anatomical terms that have a colloquial meaning but are not technically correct, such as solar plexus and stomach. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll continue to use the common meanings.
Unarmed Simulations
Stage fights that do not involve weapons are more dangerous than sword fights if for no other reason than that the actors are standing very close together. So make sure that you understand how the descriptions below have built-in safety measures, but always feel free to change any aspect of them if you can make it even safer.
I’ll repeat this many times: actors learn movement the same way they learn their lines – one at a time. But actors must perform movement the same way they perform their lines – in natural varieted rhythms. You can stretch out or speed up your timing, or even overlap some of the lines, but you can’t eliminate some words just to get to the end of the sentence faster. The same holds true for the individual moves that make up a simulation.
All of unarmed stage combat works because of four deficiencies of human perception:
1] We make very poor eyewitnesses. The police and court lawyers all know this, as do researchers of paranormal phenomena. Invariably our memory tells us that we saw more than what was really there to see. When we see shapes that we can’t identify, our brain quickly tries to fill in the gaps so as to make sense of the incoming information. So what appeared to be a child standing near a curb at second glance was obviously a mailbox on a post.
2] We have trouble tracking movement. We are both distracted by it and are bad at focusing on it. We tend to think we’ve seen longer motions than whatever actually occurred.
3] We have very poor depth perception. Even though we live in a three dimensional world and have binocular vision, our view of things is pretty much flat. We rely more on cues based on visual comparison to other known objects to tell us which items are closer. The relative size of recognized objects and their overlap as they move are our main criteria, rather than actually being able to judge exact distance purely from focusing our eyes.
4] We demand a story. When we see a movement pattern, even random actions, our brains will weave it into a narrative, an explanation of what is happening, and in that process we stick in motivation and outcome. Not only do we see a tree fall, we try to figure out why the tree fell.
All of these deficiencies normally don’t bother us during the course of our daily lives. As a matter of fact, in the real world they are probably crucial to our survival. It is better to “see” six false lions than to miss one real one. But on stage, we take advantage of each of these attributes so as to convince an audience that they have witnessed something that did not happen.
Now is a good time to repeat – the only way to safely learn stage combat is by direct lessons from a competent and experienced stage combat instructor. As a young man I tried to learn judo from a book, with the help from a few friends who had studied that martial art. And even though I picked-up a lot of interesting fine points on technique, I didn’t really learn how much I didn’t know until some competent instructors threw me around a few hundred times.
At the same time, there is always room for improvement and modification based on what your actors are actually doing. Don’t be too quick to lock a simulation in place simply because one way was taught by a stage combat instructor. Case in point: I normally teach the foot stomp with the actor doing the action stomping directly downstage of the victim’s foot. And yet at one rehearsal, the position of the actors meant that the aggressor needed to stomp upstage instead – and it looked better. So it didn’t matter that I’d taught it one way for a couple of decades. Nor did it matter that stomping downstage is the approved way by the Society of American Fight Diretors. What mattered is that for this production, with these actors, for this scene, upstage was the best way to do the simulation. Unfortunately, I was overridden by the director, who couldn’t get it out of his mind that the stomp is always done downstage. But rules don’t matter when a bit doesn’t work. So experiment. As long as you are keeping it safe, there may be several ways to do the same illusion.
Anyone can pretend to punch or kick someone. That is the part of the simulation that requires the least amount of rehearsal, but is the one on which new actors wish to focus because they feel that they are doing something. But just as repeating memorized lines in front of an audience doesn’t make you an actor, performing the action without the set-up, picture and reaction isn’t a stage fight. Oh, I grant that it is very exciting for the actors, but it is very boring theatre for the paying customers.
Let’s use a single basic face punch simulation – a right cross – to see how we take a moment of real violence and take advantage of human perception and add in the elements of both VINO and SPAR to make the violence safe. The characters of our play for some reason are in a dispute which escalates in anger and tension until one of them takes it beyond words and crosses over into the physical. For our purposes we’re going to make it a big looping right hand punch to the face.
First, we need to look at the reality before we can design a simulation. There are many ways that a punch to the face can happen, so for now we’re going to pick one – a big looping right cross. Usually the aggressor will start to lean back a bit on the right foot while the right hand moves straight back, folding into a fist. The left arm comes in front of the body as the torso turns slightly to the right. As the fist swings around forward in a big looping arc towards the victim’s face, the body turns to the left as the weight shifts onto the left foot. After contact, the right hand ends up forward and to the left, past the plane of the victim, or could continue in the same looping arc and end up over the aggressor’s left shoulder. That reality is one that we need to simulate, removing the danger but maintaining the illusion. How do we do that?
There is a three dimensional reality to the real punch, but we remember that the audience has no depth perception, so we only need to replicate the two dimensional image that they perceive. As long as we don’t violate that flattened view, the movements of our simulation can incorporate all of the safety features we need. This is the basic formulae for all of stage and film violence.
Before they do anything else, our actors have to move into position for the simulation. They have probably moved quite a bit during the argument, and little shifts in blocking can be expected from performance to performance, but the fight itself can brook no variations. The actors have to find their way to the exact spot onstage on which the fight will begin. This usually happens three or four lines before the punch so that the audience doesn’t notice the set-up.
Don’t let the actors slide through the set-up. They are usually really antsy to get right to the action, but the set-up serves two vital functions. First, if the actors do not find their exact positions, the mechanics of the simulation will be visible to the audience and the illusion will fail. Second, and more importantly, the quick visual contact between the two actors provides the last chance to back away from each other before the action begins. And even though it is only for a split second, that brief eye-contact can prevent a serious injury. Two examples to illustrate what I mean:
I once watched a performance in which one actor had to run up a flight of stairs and throw open a door, behind which was a surprise character that punched the first actor in the face, sending the victim down the flight of stairs. They were supposed to perform the very simulation I am about to describe. On the night that I saw the show, when the door flew open the actor on the other side (the aggressor) had a look on his face that can only be described as “a deer in the headlights”. It struck me that something seemed odd, and in the next moment I saw him swing his arm, heard a resounding crack, and then saw the victim fall down the stairs as the look on the aggressor changed to that of shock. It was obvious that something had gone horribly wrong. After the show I made my way backstage and asked the actor what happened. He told me that in that instant when the door flew open, he somehow forgot how to do the simulation. The two actors of course had rehearsed and performed the punch many times, but at that moment the mechanics of the illusion simply left his brain. Instead of not doing anything, the compulsion to do something led the actor to simply punch the other in the face. That’s right: he had actually cold-cocked the victim – stuck him full on the chin. Stupid? To be sure. Avoidable? Perhaps, if the victim had taken a split second to look at the aggressor when he opened the door. That “deer in the headlights” look bodes only ill, and when he saw that he should have stepped away from the aggressor until they could establish the same eye-contact that they were used to seeing in rehearsal.
The second story is quite similar, and again I was a witness to an unfortunate choice made by a panicky actor. This time it was one actor on the ground and the aggressor simulating a kick to the victim’s head. A dicey illusion, but when well rehearsed very effective. It was a costume drama, and in this evening’s performance the victim’s cape somehow flipped over his head as he went to the ground. The victim had a little bit of trouble in trying to flip the cape back. The aggressor should have simply waited, but instead choose to do something (never a good idea). He, in his panicked brain, went through all of the possible choices and settled on the one he thought was the best. He simply kicked the victim in the head. Actually kicked him. The lesson to learn is obvious: don’t try any action until you can establish eye-contact, which is part of the set-up. It doesn’t have to be noticeable to the audience, and it only needs to take a fraction of a second, but it is as vital a part of the simulation as any other part of the movement.
Directors usually like to have actors facing each other in quarter right and quarter left stances. However, for this particular face punch we are going to have the actors placed so that the aggressor is full-back and the victim is full-front and directly upstage of the aggressor. This means that just before the punch, the aggressor’s face and body front will not be seen by the audience, and most of the victim will be blocked from view as well.
Right Cross: Side View
set-up picture action reaction
We need not only the verbal cue for the violent action, but also a physical one, perhaps noticed by the audience but not necessarily part of the violent act itself. For this punch we are going to have the aggressor put his left [non-punching] hand on the victim’s shoulder [the set-up]. The reaching arm should be almost fully straight, creating as much distance as possible between the two actors. This can be justified as, let’s say, preventing the victim from turning away or grabbing at the victim’s lapel, whatever, so long as it flows from the character choices and the scene. Once this touch occurs, the actors are not allowed to move their feet. Eye-contact is established between the actors – not the characters. If the victim dislikes anything about the body placements, or if eye-contact is not established, he or she merely steps back away from the aggressor [victim stays in control].
Right Cross: Audience View
set-up picture action reaction
Keeping the hips and shoulders square to the victim, the aggressor places his right fist out to his right side, showing the audience that a punch is about to occur [the picture]. The aggressor must not move his feet nor twist away from the victim; he merely presents a two-dimensional view of the preparation for a punch to the face. The picture does not have to take more than an instant, but it does have to be clear.
Now the aggressor gently brings both hands together, making a clapping sound so as to give the sound of fist striking face [the action]. Don’t punch the right fist into the left hand: that merely hurts the hand and makes a poor sound. Once the fist disappears from the audience’s view, simply create an openhanded clap, and then make sure to create the fist again as soon as you hear the sound. This is called a slip hand knap for only one hand is moving, the other merely being a static target, although it did have to move to get into position.
The fist will never approach the victim’s face in this simulation. Make sure that the aggressor understands that the right fist doesn’t actually loop around toward the victim’s face, but rather that both hands make a beeline directly to a spot three inches away from the aggressor’s chest. Clapping the hands by the aggressor takes place in a prayer position, never near the victim’s face. The audience has no depth perception, so there is no reason to move the fist towards the victim, but instead it travels across the front of the victim well below the level of his chin [aim off-line]. We perform a two-dimensional straight line reality, and allow the audience to imagine a three dimensional looping fiction. The feet of the aggressor stay planted on the ground, and the torso doesn’t lean into the punch, but merely pivots like the agitator in a washing machine.
The knap, however performed, provides the percussive sound of the impact, but it is not the only sound that the audience needs to hear. Far more important is the natural forced exhalation that comes from both participants in a violent action. These exhalations may or may not be vocalized, but in one degree or another must accompany every move in the fight. That’s why I had you inhale during the set-up. To ignore the exhalations in a fight is to rob the audience of their most critical cues to believing your simulation.
Only after the sound has been heard should the actors respond to the punch [the reaction]. Sound travels, so in a large house the victim must not react until he consciously hears the clapping sound, or else the back third of the audience will see the physical response before the sound of the punch has reached them. Also, actors tend to jump the gun when it comes to reacting, so making them wait until they hear the sound helps clean-up the action. The victim will move the face and right shoulder back and to his right, following the impetus of the imaginary traveling fist. In a larger reaction, the body might travel one or more steps, after the head reaction, but again back and to the right, increasing the distance between the actors. This reaction must match exactly the amount of impact which has been transferred by the punch from the aggressor to the victim, so all of the laws of physics must be obeyed [interactive flow of energy] The aggressor will finish his reaction not by sending the fist over the victim’s shoulder, but simply continuing the straight line started during the action, in other words, moving harmlessly in a safe line parallel and between the two participants.
The reaction is largely overlooked or given short shrift by the actors, but it is the only part that can impart realism to the simulation. The set-up, picture and action can be learned in a matter of minutes, but the reaction can take every bit of rehearsal time that can be spared. For the aggressor on this simulation, he should know that in all likelihood his character is experiencing an extraordinary adrenaline rush. The heart is pounding, the breath rate is increased, the muscles have tensed. The increased bloodflow includes that to the eyes, so much in some cases that the belligerent literally “sees red”. Pain may not be noticed in such circumstances, but quite a bit of damage can be caused to the punching hand, especially a number of fractures in the finger bones and knuckles, often a sprained or even broken wrist. This may not matter to the character immediately, but at some point the actor should incorporate the pain and stiffness when we see the character in other scenes.
The victim has just as much work to do. The simulation must include a realistic depiction of the transmission on energy that travels in a straight line through the victim, for as it travels it will affect each body part in turn. Let’s say that one of the moves is a face punch. If so, the victim must carefully decide exactly where on the face the fist has landed. If on the left side of the jaw, for instance, the lower jaw will be shunted violently to the right, the force of which will spin the head also to the right, but with the top of the head slightly trailing the jaw. The ligaments of the left side of the neck will begin to pull, stretch and tear, but also finally to draw the left shoulder around to the front. At this point the momentum will cause the top of the head to tilt suddenly to the right. Combined with the left shoulder turn, it will move the victim’s center of balance off of the left foot and back over the heel of the right foot, causing the body to move to the right and back. And that is merely one possibility.
Physiological changes for the victim include perhaps watery eyes and runny nose at least, perhaps slight shock as well. The extent of damage can include a broken lip, broken teeth, dislocated or broken jaw, certainly some tendon and ligament damage to the left side of the neck.
How much damage has been inflicted and how far the body will travel depends on how much force was behind the punch. Both actors must work together on every rehearsal to pay close attention to this, for not only must the victim modify the reaction so that it matches the apparent force delivered, the aggressor must make adjustments in body placement so that the path the victim takes after the punch makes sense. [Look to the section on punches for more tips on performing this illusion.]
All of this is of course rehearsed by the numbers and in extremely slow motion during the early rehearsals, and only after much practice slowly increased in speed until the individual parts of the simulation appear to blend together. For performance, all of the parts will be there, but the bodies never come completely at rest, so the audience is unaware of the components of the simulation. What you’re going for is a sequence of clear fluid movements. It remains axiomatic, however, that the closer the two actors are to each other, the more that time must be stretched so that the audience can refocus their attention to a smaller sphere of action and be able to follow the story that even the simplest action describes. Whether timid or aggressive, actors always want to do stage combat too quickly, and too quickly translates as muddy for the audience, which greatly resents not being able to follow a story.
Actors learn fight moves the same way they learn their lines – one at a time. But actors must perform movement the same way they perform their lines – in natural varied rhythms. You can stretch out or speed up your timing, or even overlap some of the lines, but you can’t eliminate some words just to get to the end of the sentence faster. The same goes with the individual moves that make up a simulation. The goal is to perform all of the actions of each simulation and letting them appear natural.
Once the moves are perfected the actor’s challenge is to let the body flow so that the audience sees a fully developed natural impulse, not a staccato series of still images. A good exercise is to have the actors go through the fight, but standing several feet apart. If the fight looks convincing at that distance, then it will look great and still be safe when they move back together.