It was a moment that might have gone unnoticed in the dramatic arc of the play, a stage adaptation of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange: a group of teenage thugs burst into the home of a lame old lady, but instead of cringing in terror, the feisty dowager proceeds to hold them off with her cane. When one of her assailants attempts to disarm her, she brings him down with a kick to the crotch. She is outnumbered, of course, but even after her surrender, audiences remembered that she went down fighting.
So did the hero of Deaf Bailiwick Artists' Oedipus Who? when attacked on the crossroads between Thebes and Corinth. And the angry rebel activist gunned down in Stage Left Theatre's Police Deaf Near Far. And in Broken Spokes, two brothers -- one deaf, the other brain-damaged after an automobile accident -- slug it out while cursing each other in American Sign Language. On television, Las Vegas' Mitch Longely shoots baskets from his wheelchair, and on "CSI: New York," Marlee Matlin foils a hearing-impaired kidnapper by tearing off his cochlear-implant microphone.
If theater is to reflect its society, the time is right for both disabled characters and actors to participate in the panorama it presents, not just as human beanbags reinforcing the stereotype of the "helpless cripple" but as fully-realized personalities working, loving and -- yes, fighting.
How accurately does American theater do this in 2007? Fight choreographers Nick Sandys, Ned Mochel, Aaron Christensen, David Krajec, David Gregory and Chris Walsh share their expertise on the opportunities for both able-bodied actors playing disabled roles (Richard III, The Miracle Worker, Wait Until Dark, etc.) and disabled actors playing able-bodied characters (e.g. Las Vegas Coroner Al Robbins on "CSI: Las Vegas," played by double-amputee Robert David Hall).
MARY SHEN BARNIDGE: The first thing most fight directors ask of the cast members in rehearsal for any show is, "What can't you do?" in order to ascertain everybody's limits before beginning work. Since many blind actors can see partially, and actors with bad hips or knees can still move some, do you do this with disabled actors as well?
NICK SANDYS: I usually ask everyone, "Do you have any past injuries, or anything else, that might limit your movement?" This wording allows the actors to take responsibility for defining their physical restrictions. How limitations are seen by the actors themselves are often very revealing, by the way.
NED MOCHEL: On the first day of production for a film, I ask the stunt performers, "What do I need to know?". Nothing wastes time -- not to mention driving a stunt coordinator over the edge -- more than storyboarding an action sequence with the director, only to be informed of a pre-existing injury on the day of shooting. And with stage work, you can't just replace the actor:
I recently finished choreographing a production of Hamlet where the lead actor told me he couldn't swing a sword over his head because of a bad right shoulder. I put the sword into his other hand and told him, "From now on, you're a leftie!" and six weeks later, he was.
DAVID KRAJEC: Often, directors have cast the show before bringing in the fight choreographer, so we have to ask the question. When an actor hides something, it's much worse when they're found out than if they'd been upfront about it. And as an educator, something I've been running up against more and more are mental irregularities stemming from the medications used to treat AHDH and Bipolar conditions. It might be awkward saying to an actor, "Is there any reason I shouldn't give you a battle ax for this scene?", but you have to do it.
AARON CHRISTENSEN: I always ask the members of the Deaf Bailiwick Artists company about their physical limitations -- deaf people have bad knees, too. And though they all hear to varying degrees, I usually choreograph as if everybody were "profoundly deaf" -- that is, as if they couldn't hear at all. For example, with hearing actors, you can just shout, "Stop," and then go in and tweak whatever you want. But with deaf actors, you can't do this, and I discovered very quickly that rushing into the middle of swinging blades and bludgeons was not a good idea. So what I do now is to station the hearing cast members behind the deaf fighters -- a safe distance back, of course -- and when I need to stop the session, I yell, and they raise their hands to signal the fighters. This requires everybody to be on their toes, since you don't want one fighter dropping his guard while the other keeps going.
BARNIDGE: A standard part of actors' training is "fighting wounded" -- i.e. fighting without using some part of your body. Do any of these techniques transfer to choreographing for a disability, real or fictional?
CHRIS WALSH: With any fight, you don't want the play to stop when the fight begins. This is especially tricky when an able-bodied actor is playing a character with a disability -- say, a permanent limp. Many actors instinctively drop into "fighter mode" when the choreography starts.
SANDYS: "Acting wounded" techniques are the same in some aspects, but dealing with a character's physical limitation means having to re-examine how a move is performed -- something many fighters and fight choreographers come in ill-prepared to fully deal with. On the other hand, an actor who has lived through the rest of the play with an extreme physical limitation -- playing Richard III, for example - usually has muscle memory to help them retain that limitation, but the sheer exhaustion of working a role from within a disability is a difficult factor to calculate.
WALSH: The choreographer also has to remember the disability when creating the fight -- a character who's walked with a limp all his life is unlikely to throw too many devastating kicks to the head.
BARNIDGE: When there are no disabled actors in the production, do you call in outside consultants to watch rehearsals and offer suggestions as to the characters' capabilities?
KRAJEC: Absolutely! This even applies to actors portraying pregnant women.
BARNIDGE: Have you ever incorporated disabilities into your fight design? What were your experiences?
KRAJEC: Oh, don't get me started! Back when I was doing "King Richard's Faire," I was the good-guy pirate in a sword-fight with a bad-guy pirate who wore an eye patch. For the final weekend, we decided that the good-guy pirate would lose an eye, too. The blood bags and everything went off without a hitch, but we'd never rehearsed the fight with the consideration that neither of us had any depth perception! Fortunately, it was a sunny day and we could use our shadows as guides.
SANDYS: Pirate scenes are rife with opportunities for disability fights! I did a Twelfth Night at Noble Fool where we played Antonio as a pirate captain with a peg leg. In the middle of the major fight scene, Antonio is fighting with long dagger against Toby and Feste with smallswords when Aguecheek suddenly pops up from his hiding place and takes a mighty swing with his cane at the leg, resulting in a loud claangggg that stops the fight. In the silence, Aguecheek repeats the strike -- to
ascertain that the audience knows what just happened -- before Antonio drives him back. The disability added comic business, yes, but made the character far more capable, since even with his missing parts, he's able to fend off two swords -- four, after the guardsmen arrive with sabers -- until he's finally halted by someone drawing a firearm.
MOCHEL: Matt Kozlowski, possibly the best sword fighter I've ever worked with, has to remove his glasses for an hour before every performance to allow his eyes to adjust. The few times that he forgot to do this when we worked together, I had a nearly blind man swinging steel at my head.
CHRISTENSEN: When I was acting in True West for Deaf Bailiwick Artists, there was a moment where I had to attack my brother from behind. Of course, I couldn't give him a vocal cue, so what I did was to tap him on his back just before jumping, to give him time to ready himself. And one night in Broken Spokes, I accidentally clipped Robert [Schleifer] in the nose. My first instinct was to get in close and whisper "Are you all right?", but that wouldn't have done any good. So even though his eyes were watering, we made eye contact, and I signed, "OK?". He nodded and we were back in and running again.
WALSH: I choreographed a lengthy comic fight scene in Should've Never involving a woman on crutches from a broken leg being thrown out of a club by a bouncer. The actress had no actual injuries or disabilities, but she wore a fake cast and spent time in rehearsal learning to use the crutches properly. Since it was supposed to be a pro-wrestling kind of match, we had a sequence where the crutches were used like broadswords while the actress hopped around on her one good leg. It was big fun, with no attempt at realism.
DAVID GREGORY: In The Deadliest Game of Death, a campy kung-fu musical, my partner, Richard Gilbert, and I worked with an actress who had a prosthetic arm. We didn't know she was missing a limb until we tried to teach her a right cross and she said, "I can't bend my arm that way." After a quick conference with Richard, we asked if the arm could be easily removed and whether she would be comfortable with doing it in the show. She was, and the fight ended up with her partner ripping her arm off and beating her with it. She was wearing a tight white t-shirt, too, with no extra fabric for camouflage. The audience never figured out how we did it!
BARNIDGE: Have you noticed more willingness on the part of theater companies to do plays portraying disabilities or incorporating disabilities into the action?
CHRISTENSEN: It's still a bit of a novelty, but I welcome it when I see it.
WALSH: There has been, I think, a move to hire actors who have the disabilities referenced in the script -- Children Of A Lesser God is one example. But though theatre companies today seem unafraid to portray disabilities onstage, I haven't seen casting directors go out of their way to hire disabled actors when the text doesn't require them.
MOCHEL: In Hollywood, you'll sometimes see casting calls asking specifically for amputees. I've never worked with them, myself, but many stunt coordinators use them for action scenes where somebody gets their arm or leg blown off. It saves lots of time and money.
SANDYS: When the Goodman Theater did Oedipus Complex, they put Tiresias into a wheelchair, though the actor playing the role was able-bodied. And I've worked with a very fine disabled actor named Rene Moreno, who appeared in a Dallas production of Zastrozzi, performing the final duel in his wheelchair. There seems to be more interest nowadays in making disability an acting choice.
[END]
L-R: Ned Mochel, Nick Sandys
Aaron Christensen
Chris Walsh
