Walk The Plank! Pirates Doing Pilates

Our lovely Long John Silver has lost a limb and uses a peg leg. Our darling actor does not. How do we deal with this? Costume, acting, directing and fight people have to collaborate! Luckily, one of our crew, August Roy, works part time at a local pilates studio, so volunteered to research physical movement for actors using peg legs. Thanks, Ananda Body Pilates for supporting the arts art LLCC Theatre!

Roy’s research focused mainly on actor comfort and safety, as is the primary focus of any physical movement on the stage at LLCC Theatre. Finding that most actor feedback talked about the strain on their lower back from maneuvering with an artificial limb and the rigging used to keep it attached, Roy decided to use some pilates techniques to help our actor, Briar Fortkamp. Maintaining a strong core was vital to achieve the stability necessary for balance, grace and a neutral spine. The body always tries to balance itself natural, but finding a way for it remain balanced without causing pain or damage is often very tricky. Combining this information with Roy’s knowledge that crutches can seriously damage shoulders and wrists, they went to work.

Working intensely together, Roy and Fortkamp worked on numerous surfaces. Roy watched as Fortkamp walked, noticing how his movements changed with task, surface or inclination. They tried various stretches to accommodate the immobile muscles and the compensating muscles. Making a few simple adjustments, they were able to collaborative discover how he could align limbs and spine, move best and gain the most secure footing, on any mostly dry surface. Thinking outside the box, they found ways of tackling safe falls, maintaining safety during fights and using stairs. With practice, Fortkamp was even able to cease use of the crutch for many movements.

Roy and Director Hardiman sent Redruth to talk to Silver and find out more for our readers. Below is a small portion of what Redruth came back with. 

To see a more detailed video, where Silver describes movement in depth with examples, follow us on YouTube!

Slashing with Sabre Cutting with Cutlass - Wielding the Weapons

Sabre and Cutlass

Of the bladed weapons we use in the show, the most prominent are the sabre and cutlass.

Sabres are single-edged swords that are curved slightly used in the cavalry from the 1700s to the 1900s. This weapon is the perfect tool for cutting opponents from horseback or thrusting while on foot. Our sabres were modeled after the Hutton Sabre, developed by Alfred Hutton. Hutton served in the King’s Dragoons, updating sabre dueling and trying in vain to reintroduce the sword as a military weapon. Meanwhile, he was greatly influential in the resurgence of fencing as a study and pastime in England during the late 1800s. The theatre owes Hutton quite a lot with regards to stage fighting: he worked in the early 1900s as a fight instructor with a group of actors incorporating both Jujitsu and stick fighting at the Baritsu Club.

In Treasure Island you will see that Doctor Livesey and Squire Trelawney both have sabres. We used the sabres to help us illustrate upper and lower class divisions between the characters. While the sabre and cutlass are very similar, there are subtleties about the sabre that make it slightly more sophisticated.

Cutlasses are a shorter, broader version of the sabre. Its curved blade was well-suited to use aboard ship, allowing for use in close-quarters and around rigging that surrounded fighters aboard sailing vessels without getting hung up. The style of fighting aboard ship was slightly different as well. While the cutting style remained the same, with slashing being the most prominent way of fighting, the stance was much broader and lower to help the fighters stay balanced on a moving deck. Also, in the close-quarters, the hilt of the weapon was used  for punching. Sabre is used with distance and form, whereas cutlass is used very close and the fighters often used their entire body to attack.

If you would like a brief overview of Hutton and his impact on stage combat, Britanica has a great selection of his texts here: http://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Hutton

If you would like to know more about any of these weapons contact LLCC and sign up for the knife class in fall of 2016! Professor of Theatre Mark Hardiman does a different weapon each semester. Check it out on the LLCC Theatre webpage here: http://www.llcc.edu/academics/academic-departments/arts-humanities/theatre/

Duties of Dueling: Progeny Against Pirates Edition

FIghts

This is one of the most fight-heavy shows LLCC Theatre has created, with the most people per fight than even the two previous Swash Is Unbuckled shows. The most important thing for actor-combatants and fight directors to deal with is safety. Each actor-combatant must be safe and completely unharmed, each audience member must be well out of the way and anyone else on the stage not involved in the fight must be kept clear as well. Each fight becomes similar to a mathematical equation where the solution, x, is known but the rest of the equation is unknown. Sometimes there are clues, where part of the equation is already there. Other times there is nothing to go on but the solution. Factors that make these equations more complicated are the kind of weapons used, such as cutlasses, sabers or firearms, and who is doing the fighting. Paying close attention to sightlines, contact strikes and distance, the fight directors and fight captains must work to keep the flow and tempo of the fights consistent while maintaining realistic damages.

Working with children is a delight not all theatre are able to have. In Treasure Island, however, LLCC Theatre and TIP are lucky enough to have three younger actors in the cast, as the Young Jims. Choreographing stage combat with young actors is intensely important, for both the director and for the aspiring actor. Just like in dance, music, languages, or any other martial art learning a skill while the brain is still in it’s crucial developmental stages can prove more productive. Stage combat is an integral part of classic and modern plays. Hardiman includes a special choreography section in his Stage Combat Courses at LLCC to help students deal hands-on with safety. Teaching students and young actors about looking for safety issues sooner rather than later means they will be ready to look for safety issues when they encounter it later in their careers.

Storytelling in combat is the second most important part of choreographing a fight. Going back to the math metaphor, does the equation match the outcome? Does the solution for x line up? Is each attack and defense properly motivated? Do they flow smoothly, moving from one parry into another strike? Does the motivation work with the characters action range and cultural history?

A very important aspect of rehearsal and pre-show prep is fight call. This is where the actor-combatants come together and run through their fights before a performance or rehearsal. Doing a fight call serves a number of purposes:

1. The actor-combatants are reminded of the fight, any tricky bits that they may have trouble with, and any safety concerns can be addressed.

2. There can be adjustments made for anything different- perhaps the costume has been altered, maybe the stage is a bit damp, perhaps the actors are on an entirely different stage if we have to move the performance inside due to rain.

3. The fight call serves as a vitally important re-connection and grounding experience between the actors to rebuild any character or actor bonds between when they last did the fight and the fight call.

Included in this post is a video of our Girl Jim Understudy (Anna) working with Arrow (MacKenzie) and (Kennideigh) on their fight during fight call. This is a clip of the first time Anna has done the fight on the outside stage. Weapons used in this fight are shovel, knife and cutlass.

They are moving much slower than fight speed, which is sometimes done in a fight call. The first thing our actor-combatants do is make eye contact with each other, so they know that everyone is ready to go. Next, Anna cues the first head cut by holding out the knife at the angle and height she will be cutting, so the others know how low to duck. Next she uses the Magical Floating Head Technique: she sets her eyes where her opponents heads used to be. This way, when they duck, she doesn't track them with her eyes because the weapon will certainly follow her gaze and really get them in the head. We can't have that! She repeats the same process with the second cut. Her opponents do a lovely job of keeping eyes on her and her knife, to know when it is safe to stop ducking.

You may also notice that Kennideigh takes the shovel and "punches" it into her own stomach, rather than letting Anna really hit her with it in the gut. This is a precaution we take in stage combat with almost all contact strikes with a weapon. Using this technique, Kennideigh remains in control of the weapon, where and how hard it strikes. Anna simply offers the handle to Kennideigh and she grasps it with her hand, guiding it to the right place. Using physical weight shifts and this other magical thing called Acting, Anna and Kennideigh can make it look like Anna is the mightiest of young girls and his giving this pirate a punch for her money.

Talk Like A Pirate! The Linguistics of "Treasure Island"

Linguistics of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Classic

Part of Hardiman’s acting book, Dynamic Acting Theory stipulates that the characters of a play speak in such a way that give actors clues about intent, how they move, respond to changes and interact. This Hardiman calls Action Range. These things, in turn, work together to help create a realistic character, complete with cultural history and dialect. With most plays, the playwright has already taken care of these textual clues. Some authors choose to write the sounds of their characters words using punctuation and alternate spellings like Arthur Miller (The Crucible) and even authors such as J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter) and J. R. R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings). Hardiman had noticed how there were distinct voices in Treasure Island, indicated by vowels, consonants, word choice, word combination, punctuation and length of line as well as phonetic spelling.

Four particular dialects and action ranges became clear through the adaptation process, two more vague sounds, and two very specific sounds. The first was the Townspeople Sound: a coastal English sound the wound and curved and looped, found early on at the Inn, a sound Jim and his family would have. Then there was the Pirate Sound: a gravelly, dry-throat, sun-burnt sound that would vary from pirate to pirate, but stay largely within the action ranges of coiling, winding and heaving. The next two sounds are easily placed within social system and geography: Received Pronunciation (RP (The upperclass British sound made famous in Dr. Dolittle) and Scottish. Both the Squire and Doctor are RP, while the captain is decidedly Scottish in action range and vowels.

August Roy, former LLCC Theatre student and now UIS Liberal Studies major, has been working on developing an easier system for actors to learn dialects, so Hardiman brought her onto the project to help share the research the sounds. Together Hardiman and Roy worked for several months, before and after auditions, to identify a dialect for each of the sounds. Between them, they finally settled on two recordings that would be most beneficial for the actors learning the Townspeople Sound, through Paul Meier’s IDEA website: (http://www.dialectsarchive.com/england-32 is an example)  RP was a bit easier, and is easier to get to for most actors from the Midwest. They share many similarities. Scottish is one of the harder dialects to get to for the actor, as they soon found out. The more work, punching sound supported lower and belted more forcefully, fight the natural Midwestern and general American action ranges.

In all the dialects were designed to both fit the characters who speak them, as suggested by the language structure and the phonetic spellings that were used by Stevens and to create a sound pallet that enabled us to paint a picture of a very different world and time.

Adapting a Classic... Again!

Greetings, readers! We are back again this summer with one of the biggest shows yet! To celebrate technical rehearsals and opening we are posting some behind the scenes blogs to give you an idea of the work and collaboration that went into this production.

Adapting

Mark Hardiman has been planning this adaptation of Treasure Island for well over a year. Previously, he adapted A Christmas Carol, which also appeared on TIP's stage (the indoor one- it was too cold!). To begin he started reading script after script, looking for one that would be appropriate for the cast, the venue (TIP’s wonderful outdoor stage) and our audience. Each script, however, seemed to be lacking some of the vital elements of Robert Louis Stevenson’s original story. Part of why Hardiman wanted to do Treasure Island so much is for the mystery, danger, adventure and inspiration in the coming-of-age classic. But where one script kept the danger, it left out the mystery of the adventure. Where the mystery is kept, the humanity and innocence of Jim is lost. Where Jim keeps his innocent nature, the script would leave out the precise moment when he becomes a man, leaving out all the subtlety of decision making and the tiny moments of courage that make Jim so brave.

After reading half a dozen scripts, Hardiman decided that to keep the essence of the story and to remain truthful to the original author, while maintaining flow within safe stage combat standards, he would have to adapt it.

Beginning around September, Hardiman began to layout his plan for creating the script. Building did not commence, however, until the winter break, as the second production of Your Swash Is Unbuckled was due to perform at the Hoogland Center for the Arts. Weeks of writing and editing ensued, with some very important collaboration.

Tomorrow’s post is a linguistic look at the classic tale! Don’t miss it!