Violence is rampant in theater, with murderers, conspirators, jealous lovers and scurvy pirates lurking behind every curtain. For Ted deChatelet, it’s time somebody did something about it.
“There’s not a play that goes by without somebody getting slapped, or pushed around, or punched or stabbed,” said deChatelet, professor of theater at Western Oregon University and co-founder of Revenge Arts Stage Combat.
For the sake of everyone from Brutus to bar brawlers, swashbucklers and every scoundrel in between, “what we try and do is provide safe and effective violence,” he said.
The mission of Revenge Arts is to provide safe, quality stage combat choreography and instruction for stage and screen. It began as a brainstorm between deChatelet and colleague Jon Cole in early 2005, on a drive to Seattle. Both had been separately arranging fight sequences in the Salem theater scene; they soon decided to join forces and fight side-by-side. Five years later, their merry band has grown, as respected fellow fight instructors based in New York, Los Angeles, Texas and Florida have jumped into their fray.
What they teach is an underappreciated skill, especially on stage. In theater, unlike film or television, there can’t be stunt doubles, multiple takes, or stars storming off to their trailers.
“Onstage, the same actor that plays Hamlet for three and a half hours has to do the fight at the end,” he said. “He’s got to be able to do it eight times a week identically, for a play’s entire theatrical run.”
deChatelet’s own career in fighting began roughly a decade ago. A freelance actor living in Manhattan, he moved west to McMinnville in 2000 after his wife, also a professor of theater, accepted a position at Linfield College. It was a jarring change in scenery, he confessed, and it was much harder to land acting jobs so far away from Broadway, without diversifying his actor’s portfolio.
But what began as a necessity has become his passion, and a highly-sought-after skill, too.
From ancient Greek drama to Shakespeare to modern theater, there has always been and will always be fighting. At some point, a stage actor has got to be good with a knife, sword, gun, or whatever the weapon may be. deChatelet has even worked on plays where characters go berserk and trash the set with a baseball bat. It all takes disciplined, detailed choreography to keep it safe as well as visually appealing to the fourth wall – the audience.
It’s really easy to hurt somebody if you don’t know what you’re doing, he said. According to deChatelet the most common action in a play is a punch in the face, and frequently an inexperienced actor will misjudge his or her own strength, or tolerance for pain, while trying to sell the realism of the moment.
“An actor [might] say, ‘You can hit me; just hit me lightly.’ That’s beyond stupid. You get the adrenaline and an audience, and the next thing you know somebody gets a broken jaw.”
It happens more often than it should, deChatelet confessed.
“We teach people how to fake this stuff.”
And even though safety is the primary goal, “within the realm of safety, we want it to look as badass as possible,” he said.
Fighting is the essence of drama.
”Everybody’s heart rate goes up when there’s a good fight,” he said.
Both Cole and deChatelet are certified fight instructors through the Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD). The sanctioning body recognizes eight different weapons disciplines, those most commonly found in stage fighting, from hand-to-hand combat and knives to the swashbuckling single-sword derring-do of heroes like the Dread Pirate Roberts.
To become proficient in a weapon, an actor must take 30 hours of training in basic and advanced moves, and pass a proficiency test in which he or she must stage a fight scene with all the required moves. The scene is evaluated by 14 fight masters who then pass or fail the actor. Pass three weapons disciplines, and an actor becomes a recognized actor combatant; Pass six and he or she becomes an advanced actor combatant.
However, one strike against the face, either purposeful or inadvertent, results in an automatic failure. After all, the face is the most important part of an actor’s career, the most important acting tool and marketable asset he or she has. Not even the most heartless villain would dare.
“You don’t touch the 8×10,” deChatelet said, motioning a square around his head.
For Willamette University senior Amanda Washko, 22, stage fighting is a natural fit. A dancer growing up, she tried out for a play and fell in love with theater. After graduation, she plans to pursue her master of fine arts degree in California.
Stage fighting informs her acting, she said, because of its intensity.
“I really like to be challenged,” Washko said.
For an aspiring actor like Washko looking to launch her career, stage fighting experience is another feather in her cap, deChatelet said. An ingénue who can also whoop it up is hard to find, and more valuable to a troupe or company, he said.
“It could be the one thing that separates you from hundreds of headshots,” he said.
