When the swords start flying in The Royal Exchange\u2019s thrilling new production of Cyrano de Bergerac, you don\u2019t need to suspend your belief very hard to feel the fights are for real. The design of the theatre, in the round, means that there is nowhere to hide in a stage fight. Every slap, every punch and, in this case, every sword blow has to make some form of contact.<\/p>\n
The trick is keeping it safe while making it look scary as hell. And yes, it can go wrong. Harold Norman, whose ghost is said to haunt the Oldham Coliseum, was accidentally stabbed on stage in the role of Macbeth during the theatre\u2019s 1947 production of the Scottish play that superstition says cannot be named. He later died of peritonitis caused by the sword wound.<\/p>\n
Luckily there are no such superstitions linked to Cyrano de Bergerac, the classic French comedy about a brilliant poet and swordsman Cyrano – the man with the big heart and equally big nose – who falls deeply in love with the beautiful Roxanne. And, with veteran stage fight director Renny Krupinski in charge of the action, hopefully there will be no accidents either.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t work with real swords, they are stage weapons, but they still have the potential to hurt,\u201d says Renny, whizzing one of the said weapons around his head with a whoosing effect, It\u2019s 3\u2019 of steel. It\u2019s not sharp but if you poke it hard enough in your eye, up your nose, in your mouth – it\u2019ll kill you – no two ways about it. Even if you just whack someone with it, it hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sword whistles as Renny swishes it through the air again and I don\u2019t need any convincing. He teaches me a couple of moves and, while I didn\u2019t make the fatal error of killing my opponent, I did slip up on two vital points. First, you should keep two feet firmly on the ground for balance\u2026 Second, you should never, ever, close your eyes. Keeping your eyes open shouldn\u2019t be difficult, but if you hear the clatter the swords make when they cross, when you are on the other end, it\u2019s not as easy as it sounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t say, \u2018Sorry, that was a bit off target,\u2019 when you\u2019ve hit someone in the face with a sword,\u201d Renny continues. \u201cUnlike in fencing, on stage you haven\u2019t got a mask. The danger is ever present. You have to make the actors very aware of how dangerous it is. It sounds dramatic and, on stage, it is, but Renny has been directing fights at The Royal Exchange for over a decade, and while the fighting looks spontaneous and, at times, life-threatening, there is not one move that hasn\u2019t been rehearsed to the nth degree. \u201cJust as every line in the play has been carefully scripted, every move is worked out, but it\u2019s made to look spontaneous.\u201d he explains.\u201d You can\u2019t just give the actors swords and say \u2018improvise\u2019 because it looks rubbish. It\u2019s very precise and there\u2019s no margin for error – one step too many and you could end up in the audience with a sword in your hand.\u201d
\nThere are two very different fight scenes in the play. The first sees Cyrano, played by award-winning actor Ben Keaton, show off his swordsmanship during a duel. The second, an energetic version of the 100 fight, which lasts for four minutes, where Cyrano faces 100 opponents sent to assassinate him, a scene not scripted and rarely acted out on stage\u2026for obvious reasons!<\/p>\n
\u201cContrary to popular belief, Cyrano is not a play all about sword fighting,\u201d adds Renny. \u201cThere are only two fights in this production but I hope they are full of panache, comedy, thrills and a bit more panache. I don\u2019t think audiences sit there and go, \u2018OK, this is the bit where the fight happens.\u2019 Obviously, it\u2019s pretend but, as with the rest of the play, the audience should believe what they see is real. A fight should be thrilling and exciting, but it should also drive the story forward and add a different dimension to the character. The difficulty here at the Exchange, is that the audience is so close. There is nowhere to hide and everything has to be right out there in the open. It\u2019s a fantastic challenge and really what I think theatre is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the swords start flying in The Royal Exchange\u2019s thrilling new production of Cyrano de Bergerac, you don\u2019t need to suspend your belief very hard to feel the fights are for real. The design of the theatre, in the round, means that there is nowhere to hide in a stage fight. Every slap, every punch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"yoast_head":"\n