Staging classic fights from Shakespeare’s plays is tricky. The Bard didn’t leave explicit directions beyond single words like “draw” and “hit” revealed in dialogue. Prism Movement Theater, whose artistic director Jeffrey Colangelo works as a fight coordinator, is putting on an educational show to explain and demonstrate how theaters come up with solutions to this problem.
Using text analysis, anthropology and historical research, They Fight will address the audience on how fight coordinators design the famous scenes of violence in dramas like Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet while also enacting the legendary sword play between Mercutio and Tybalt, Hamlet and Laertes.
“I can’t tell you how many passionate discussions I’ve had with fight directors about the fighting styles of Tybalt and Mercutio, how Tybalt’s ‘immortal passado’ would be staged during Shakespeare’s time, what the ‘Italian fencing style’ looked like on an English stage,” Colangelo says. “All wildly different interpretations, but all from a very careful reading of the text, careful research and the application of the historical, cultural and technological developments of the time.
“And that’s not to mention the story beats you still have to tell within the fight. It all makes for a fascinating process that I thought would be wonderful for audiences to see play out with professional actors and sword fighters.”