#stage violence

[shakespearenews]

Candles take the brunt in gore-free production of Titus Andronicus

Shakespeare’s most violent play to be staged with actors’ candles being pummelled in scenes with bloodshed

Each character will, the Guardian understands, have a candle avatar that in turn is pummelled, gored or snuffed out completely when the text dictates.

Characters may use meat cleavers, or heat guns, or metal tenderisers to inflict the violence. Sometimes the spraying wax means safety equipment will be needed. The show, which runs from January to April, has an all-female cast.

The theatre is keen to stress that the intention is not to sanitise violence or spare audiences – and points to shows such as The Woman in Black, which succeeds in being truly terrifying by relying on audiences using their own imagination.

“It will feel like the audience is in a torture chamber,” said one theatre source.

[the-bunny-wife]

For @snowhite-dahlia who laughs every single time

“THUNK”

[shakespearenews]

I Teach Kids How to Hit One Another. Lately, One Particular Move Has Become a Problem.

I prepare them for discomfort. Is that enough?

Romeo and Juliet doesn’t hold quite the poignancy without the fights and the deaths. Who is Tybalt without his fire and his swashbuckling? Without the “dishonorable” killing of Mercutio? Who is Romeo without his willingness to avenge his friend’s death? What is the play without a kiss? I’ve choreographed the sword fights the play requires in professional, college, and high school productions. The final suicides? Still the most difficult actions I stage. I demonstrate for Romeo how to convulse as the poison takes its aim. I sit on the funeral bier with Juliet and show her how to plunge a dagger into her heart. How to portray the realization of her choice. Am I being respectful of the triggers there? I question myself always. I question the actors always. R&J tells a brutal story with an ending brought about by poor choices: lack of restraint, willful ignorance, and the continuation of musty, mostly forgotten feuds. Lust, anger, rebellion. Secrets. Choices that condemn families to lives and deaths of grief. The stuff of tragedy, the stuff of a good story.

[shakespearenews]

A world in which candles represent life: designing Titus Andronicus | Blogs & features

Shakespeare's goriest tragedy is brought to life for the first time in our Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

In this new production of Titus Andronicus, the candles ‘represent bodies or life’, says Co-Designer Rosie Elnile. ‘The flame feels like the consciousness, the wax the flesh and the fat [and] the wick the bones’, she explains. Fellow Co-Designer Grace Venning concurs: ‘materiality has been at the heart of the conversation from the very beginning, examining our physical and psychological responses to wax and flame.’ The designers found themselves ‘interested in the fuzzy sticky line between metaphor and material reality’, ensuring that ‘the materials are allowed to have emotional resonances as objects.’

For inspiration, the Design team looked to live art including Marina Abramovic’s performance Rhythm 0, the 1977 film Suspiria (‘mostly for the colours’), and visited a nearby candle factory. ‘It was an amazing trip’, says Rosie, ‘I felt very privileged to be in this workshop that made everyday objects with such care, love and precision.’ To Rosie and the team, ‘candles are kind of magic’, making the trip feel ‘like visiting an alchemist ‘.

[shakespearenews]

“Eventually, everyone is upstaged by one man: Richard, Duke of York. Sophie Russell’s take is not the single best I’ve seen. But across the two plays her journey is thrilling. When we first meet her in ‘Henry VI’ she’s a beer-swilling psychopath who commits her own murders: memorably, she offs Suffolk with a chainsaw, and (spoiler, I guess) Henry by biting his throat out.”

[shakespearenews]

From Fencing School to Theatre

The video below is an in depth documentary on The Globe Theatre. It is intriguing, and it covers in detail the history of this most famous of theatres, but sadly it only briefly touches on Th…

“This public would therefore have been very conscious of the differing applications of violence at the time, and a performance involving a duel on stage that did not live up to lifelike expectations would have suffered as a consequence. This was something of which the writers were, of course, aware, and so both the writing and the performance reflected this. Actors would train under prominent fencing masters to ensure that they had become convincing experts with the sword.“

(N.B. There’s a great response written by Casey Kaleba in the Tooth & Claw Combat Arts Fbook group that argues this article is not correct. Interested in responses - how much would Shakespeare actor’s have known/needed to know?)

[shakespearenews]

At Shakespeare’s Globe theater, Israeli woman directs the fights

Yarit Dor choreographs stage combat for all-female cast of 'Richard II'

Fight directors are usually called in to consult for a certain number of sessions depending on how much violence is in the show, said Dor. In this production, however, she was included as part of the ensemble of actors and creatives for the duration of the rehearsals and production.

The driving concept behind this “Richard II” production is its all-female cast, all of whom are from countries that have experienced some form of imperial colonization; now they’re telling stories of an opposing king in ancient England.

[shakespearenews]

Fight director Kate Waters: ‘Gratuitous violence doesn’t interest me’

Kate Waters – or Kombat Kate – is one of the most respected fight directors in UK theatre. She explains how to make stage violence look real, and why the industry needs to open up to more talent

Waters herself had to learn on the job. Her first professional production as a fight director, outside of drama school, was Coriolanus at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory in 2001. It was then that she worked out an approach that has served her well ever since.

“I remember the fight between Coriolanus and Aufidius,” she says. “I remember it being quite exciting. I remember the relationship I had with those actors and how special that felt, and how much they loved doing the fight. I discovered that what I was good at was guiding actors to the end result.”