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Just what is "Theatrical Combat?"

Theatrical combat is a multi-disciplinary performance art that combines acting with elements of fencing, martial arts, dance, and music to allow the staging of safe and effective violence. As an area of study, stage violence is evolving rapidly as the demands of modern performance arts stress greater safety while endeavoring to both to compete with the sheer spectacle of the silver screen and still allow the intimate conveyance of character as it is revealed through violence.

Violence is rampant in the theatrical profession. Not real violence perpetrated by individuals to the detriment of others, but choreographed violence presented by performers for the enjoyment of others. Audiences the world over thrill to fake slaps, punches, hits, kicks, and staged sequences with a variety of weapons; actors, stunt people, and the like are continually required to perform more exciting, more complicated - and sometimes more dangerous - fight scenes.

There is nothing new about this; the choreographed fight scene probably goes back to prehistory and fireside re-enactments of fights with ferocious beasts or recalcitrant neighbors; combative sports have always had great crowd appeal and formalized theatres have often thrived on battles, blood, and gore. Until recently, training in how to perform fights and swordplay was stock-in-trade for those in the theatrical profession; many became quite proficient. The great Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean was a regular student at the famed fencing school of the Angelos; Tarleton, a popular Elizabethan clown, was a master of the sword; Ben Jonson, the playwright and poet contemporary of William Shakespeare, killed a member of his own troupe in a duel. In recent memory, many of the greats of the acting world received formal training in swordplay and combat and were well known for their skill at performing fight scenes.

Today, however, in spite of the incredible amount of violence that appears on stages and screens and the pressure on performers to be capable of doing "action," very little training is readily available in this once common field. One may take a course in "stage combat," or learn "picture fighting" from a stuntman, or even get a few lessons in fencing or martial arts, but often these are of little value. Unfortunately, with the reality of a swordfight effectively nonexistent, and with most individuals' awareness of fighting skills extremely limited, very low caliber instruction is usually all that is obtained. Many who attempt to teach this field have very little practical knowledge; there is no current industry and few educational standards for any phase of the art; misinformation and cliched "tricks" are the norm. As an "art," it is fundamentally resistant to the establishment of benchmarks, though there are accrediting bodies such as the SAFD. Even taking fencing lessons from an NFCA certified Master doesn't fill the gap, as modern fencing is quite a bit different from fencing as it was taught for actual combat and almost a completely different discipline from theatrical swordplay.

Attempting to create a comprehensive system of training by combining elements of the old-fashioned 'stage combat" and the more modern "picture fighting," blending in a generous helping of the way fencers and martial artists are trained coupled with historical research into ancient weaponry and fighting techniques and adding a large dash of professional experience, resulted in what may now be termed "Theatrical Combat;" that is, combat for the entire theatrical profession. It is not a series of "tricks" to produce a cheap effect, but a highly disciplined and complicated art that requires much dedication to master; it is also a progressive system that teaches a process of learning that can be applied to new situations. Therefore, although Theatrical Combat is in and of itself necessarily incomplete (as what system can encompass everything?) learning its methodology allows one not only the freedom to create but to absorb and adapt other ideas and techniques.

How does this "Theatrical Combat" differ from Fencing?

Fencing is called Escrime in French and Scherma in Italian, both terms coming from Medieval root words for "skirmishing;" however in English, "Fencing" is a contraction of an ancient phrase that describes swordplay as "the Art of Defense and Offense" and in our modern world has come to mean the competitive sport as it is practiced with three theoretical "weapons" - the foil, the epee, and the sabre. Each of these weapons descends from a different source and is governed by slightly different rules that relate vaguely to its origin.

The foil (from refouler, to cover or turn back the point) comes to us from the practice implement for the art of swordplay in the late 1700's - it is not now, nor was it ever, a real weapon. As its use was becoming an exercise for enjoyment in its own right, devoid of the realities of practicing for combat situations, techniques and rules to govern them were created that shaped it into what it is now: a slim, light, delicate piece of equipment for a highly complicated, extremely athletic and disciplined game of tag. The epee descends from the epee de combat - the formal sword for the "Duel of Honor" of the 1800's, and its techniques follow that theme, with hitting first being of paramount importance. It is the heaviest of the fencing weapons (although still quite light,) and in many ways resembles its ancestor. The sabre comes to us from the horsemans curved cutting sword of north eastern Europe which was called sabel by the Germans, sablya by the Slavs and Russians, sablja by the Serbs, and száblya by the Hungarians who spread its use with their Hussars (light cavalry units that became popular at the turn of the 18th century;) it is the only fencing weapon with which the edges (the entire true edge, and the first third of the false) may be used, the other two being strictly limited to their "points." The modern fencing sabre is extremely light, with a graceful, curved guard to protect the hand against cuts; the blade, however, unlike its predecessors, is straight - a modification generally attributed to Italian fencing masters in the late 1800's, although there have been many proponents of a straight bladed sabre (notable among them was Gen. George S. Patton, jr.)

The practice of any one of these weapons is an art unto itself; mastering them is a difficult and arduous task. No less arduous, however, is the art of Theatrical or Classical Swordplay (Escrime Theatral or Ancienne,) which is not fencing, but another art that descends, like fencing, from the art of the sword, but, unlike fencing, has another ancestor in that other ancient art of humankind, the art of telling stories to thrill, delight, amuse and instruct.

The student of fencing will notice the absence of many terms in this art that relate specifically to that sport; ideas such as right of way or second intention have very little relevance to the art of performance swordplay; in fact, many of the concepts of competition have no place in the context of theatrical fight scenes at all. Performing a fight of any sort is above all a cooperation between partners, not a competition between opponents. When that cooperation is coupled with skill and training a performance can be raised to a higher level of reality where it allows an audience to suspend its disbelief and become involved emotionally with the action, rather than merely being spectators. Difficult as this is, it is the true goal of most performing and the real reason behind learning the techniques and terminology of, and training continually at, an art as difficult and as complicated as Classical Swordplay.

Is "Theatrical Combat" important?

Many university and conservatory performance arts programs have shifted stage combat training from an elective to a requirement and this training is now considered an essential element of the movement training sequence.

Much of this document is drawn from Dan Speaker's handbook on Theatrical Combat and which is available for purchase either through the Ring of Steel or from the Academy of Theatrical Combat