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The Garden Bard

As a kid, my two favorite movies were, without question, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and The Princess Bride, for two distinct reasons: Oompa Loompas and sword fights. As luck would have it, I was able to make a career out of one of these interests (hint: it’s not the Oompa Loompas). Stage combat and the process of creating stage violence have always been of great fascination to me. This summer I am working as fight director for Door Shakespeare’s production of Cyrano De Bergerac, and that creation process began months before I even arrived in Door County.

My first task as fight director was to harvest information that would help me flesh out the world of the play. In addition to the play itself, I studied historical documents, films and anything else that had to do with French swordsmanship in the seventeenth-century. I also had several phone meetings with Suzanne Graff, the director of Cyrano, in order to exchange thoughts with her on how the violence should be realized, along with all pertinent design and safety information.

With all this research informing the world of the play, I was ready to start putting the fight together. This fight is a historical seventeenth-century duel, the weapon of choice being the smallsword, a variation of the European rapier. Smallsword combatants were exceptionally well-trained members of the nobility who often began private lessons as small children. The title character in Cyrano was renowned throughout France as practically unmatched in his talent for blade combat. Such proficiency called for me to create a very technical fight.

One element that makes this duel unique is that Cyrano composes an extemporaneous poem as he crosses swords with his adversary (a viscount and fop, played by yours truly). This is another challenge for a stage combatant, due to the sheer multitasking it requires. I worked to align the fight itself with the poem, which references the different body parts Cyrano targets, as well as the maneuvers that his opponent attempts during the contest. This makes both the fight and the poem easier to remember, and lessens the potential for sensory overload on the audience’s part. With these factors in mind, I put the entire fight on paper in as much detail as possible. Then, upon arrival in Door County, I compared my notes with those of director Suzanne Graff. I was now ready to start physically rehearsing the fight with our Cyrano, played by Jerry Gomis.

I began our rehearsals with tutorials in smallsword. We started with basic footwork, vocabulary, attacks, parries, and combat safety, and then got into some more technically challenging maneuvers. After the tutorials, I walked Jerry through the fight, very slowly, one move at a time, and then worked the fight in small chunks. I closely monitored specific nuances of the weapon style, particularly footwork, posture, and lightness of touch. I emphasized often that these weapons are not heavy broadswords or sabers, used to chop an enemy in half. These are deceptive, lightning-fast, three-foot-long “needles,” whose purpose was to damage an adversary with the sword point through controlled thrusts and cuts.

We rehearsed for two hours a day at slow speeds, gradually increasing the tempo until we became more than comfortable with each movement in the duel. In the final week of rehearsal, we added in the text of the poem and more specific choices in the acting of the fight. Now, before each performance, Jerry and I meet early in the space, get into costume and run through the fight several times, starting slowly and then building to performance speed.

Now that the fight is in performance, I am afforded a panoramic view of how violence fits into the play as a whole. Cyrano is a play full of creation and collaboration; two men collaborate to win the love of a young woman. Cyrano is constantly engrossed in the creation of poetry, music, and art. Even though violence is one of the most destructive and isolating things in the world today, it too is a force of creation in this play, and it has proven as great a fascination to me this summer as when I was a little boy watching The Princess Bride.

Luke Leonhardt is an actor and fight director at Door Shakespeare, and "The Garden Bard" is a rotating column written by various members of the Door Shakespeare company, including actors, musicians, and directors. Each column reflects on a different aspect of Door Shakespeare’s 2008 season, featuring A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cyrano de Bergerac. Call 920. 839.1500, or visit http://www.doorshakespeare.com for more details.