AT WORK on a recent Wednesday, Kevin Mayes was kicked in the groin, whacked on the arm, cracked on the back and stabbed in the spine.
And you thought your job was brutal.
Mayes, as Sir Francis Walsingham, is one of several actors engaged in a slew of violent activities in “Marlowe,” Bailiwick Repertory’s current production, written by Harlan Didrickson, about Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. Ripped trousers and sweat-drenched shirts are as much a part of this drama as the dialogue.
Best known for his plays, “Tamburlaine Parts I and II,” “Dr. Faustus” and “Edward II,” as well as the poem that begins, “Come live with me and be my love,” the Cambridge-educated Marlowe (played by Timothy Hull) led a short, tempestuous life that combined the grace of his writing with wildly dangerous behavior. He worked as a spy for Queen Elizabeth I, was arrested for heresy and stabbed to death at age 29 in 1593, in a tavern outside London.
To create the combative stage movement for this highly physical play, director David Zak called in David Gregory and Richard Gilbert, co-founders of R&D Choreography and specialists in what they call “violence design.”
But how do they make it look so realistic? It’s one thing in the movies, where special effects abound. But in a stage production, the audience is watching the action in real time. On a recent evening, I met with Gregory at Bailiwick and watched the “Marlowe” actors run through scenes to find out how cast members kick, punch and throw each other around without ending up in the hospital.
At times, the interview took a punishing turn. Gregory demonstrated in a Bailiwick hallway the effectiveness of R&D’s choreography by taking several punches from a cast member and also collapsing over and over again, hair flying, to demonstrate how to fall without injury.
When it came to the groin kick, however, we went to the stage to talk to Mayes. Doesn’t it hurt? “No, it sure doesn’t,” said Mayes, right after getting kicked between the legs.
Lying down, he sustained another swift one from fellow actor Vincent Teninty. At least one person watching winced when–thunk!–foot met target.
Geez, it looks like it hurts. The move works because it is fast and manipulative–“sleight of foot,” if you will–making audience members think they see something different from what actually occurs.
A native of California who emphasized that, personally, he is “a pacifist–not a fighter,” Gregory explained that he and Gilbert, who grew up in Rhode Island, carefully plan actors’ moves to give an “illusion” of violence without compromising safety or inflicting pain. What may look like a free-for-all is plotted like dance choreography, with actors’ simultaneous movements of arms and legs recorded on paper.
“Our most populous melee was 56 in a `Romeo and Juliet’ at Downers Grove South High School,” said Gregory. “There is just no way that writing out all the moves in English would work.”
He and Gilbert, both age 37 and both former actors who have choreographed more than 100 Chicago-area shows together, often throw each other around their studio, the Fightshop, 3124 W. Carroll Ave., to figure out how to achieve a specific effect. (The two teach stage combat classes there and at Lewis University in Romeoville.) For “Marlowe,” Gregory said, director Zak wanted “a grittier look than the typical Three Musketeers style, with a big brawl and a knife fight.”
The choreographers are also responsible for the “placement and delivery” of blood. “Stage blood is mostly Karo syrup, red food coloring and water. We make our own,” he said. “If you want it to spray, it will be thinner than if you want it to ooze.”
But the real key to a believable fight is planning. For each fight, the duo works out “a hook–a central concept that the fight hangs on,” Gregory explained. For Mayes’ beating as Walsingham, who is head of the Queen’s secret service, the hook is that “he is trapped and beaten for a long time and can’t fight back. That makes it more tragic.
“It’s important that the violence amplify the story,” Gregory emphasized, adding: “It shouldn’t take it off course or let it stall.”
`Marlowe’
When: Through July 17
Where: Bailiwick Arts Center, 1229 W. Belmont Ave.
Price: $22-25; 773-883-1090 or www.bailiwick.org
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THE RIGHT CROSS (OR WHAT SEEMS TO BE …)
During an alcohol-infused brawl, Marlowe (Timothy Hull) is punched in the face by Bradley (Vincent Teninty). The 185-pound Teninty puts his weight behind a powerful right cross that sends Hull to the ground. But Teninty, downstage of his target, does not actually make contact.
1. To line up the punch, Teninty thrusts his left hand near Hull’s head.
2. Then he quickly smacks his own chest with it while using his right fist to punch the space where his left hand was.
3. Hull’s reaction to the punch–a sharp jerk of the head, a shoulder twist, a fall to the ground–enhances the effect.
The sound created by an actor to mimic the sound of a blow is called a “knap.”
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Doesn’t that hurt?
The secret behind six illusions of violence in “Marlowe,” a Bailiwick Repertory drama about Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe, a scribe who was no stranger to drinking or donnybrooks.
THE GROIN KICK
Just before actor Kevin Mayes, as Sir Francis Walsingham, takes this kick, he is thrown to the ground. He lands on his back, which he arches while grimacing, as if in pain from the fall. That position sets him up to receive the kick from fellow actor Vincent Teninty, playing a soldier. Teninty is careful to make contact with Mayes via the laces of his soft shoe, not the toe. He lands the kick on Mayes’ raised rear end, though it appears to hit a much more vulnerable spot. When foot strikes, Mayes recoils, grunting loudly, to complete the effect.
THE THROAT SLITTING
Timothy Hull, as Marlowe, encounters two French secret agents who attack him. He stabs one in the face (a move hidden by a cloak), then overpowers the second (Hank Hilbert), grabbing him from behind with his left arm and using his right hand to “slit” Hilbert’s throat.
Hilbert has a plastic sandwich bag of blood duct-taped “some nights to my skin, some nights to my shirt–we’re still seeing what works best,” said the actor. Hull pops the bag open when he grabs Hilbert and drags the dagger across his neck as the blood oozes. Hilbert collapses, facing upstage, so Hull can rub blood on his hands without the audience seeing. He then holds up his bloodied hands, expressing horror at what he has done.
THE BACK WHACKS
When Mayes, as Walsingham, is severely beaten on the back by soldiers with clubs, he can withstand the thudding blows because he is wearing what Gregory calls an “armadillo”–molded padding on his back, attached to a wide elastic waistband. The soldiers also whack his right forearm, causing him to drop a dagger. The arm is protected by soft, thick padding.
THE BACK STAB
After Mayes is “beaten,” one soldier (Michael Pacas) props him up while another (Joe Hudson) jams a blunt-edged steel dagger into his back.
Fabric helps hide the point of “penetration.” Mayes’ reactions to the thrust of the dagger make it look like he has actually been stabbed. “I’ve been taught that when the knife goes in, all your muscles tighten up around it, so my back is tensing and so is my neck,” said the actor.
Because Mayes cannot actually feel the dagger being withdrawn, Hudson gives him a push when he pulls the knife back (feigning difficulty, as if it’s being clutched by muscles). The push, said Hudson, is Mayes’ “cue to react.”
THE CRASH TO THE GROUND
Actors’ falls generally look like bruise-makers. The trick, said Gregory, is to get low and use the “musculature of the body to cushion the blow.” When Mayes falls in the beating scene, explained Gregory, “what we want you to see is that he’s thrown down and lands on his back and that it hurts.
“What we don’t want you to see is that he steps out with his right foot, gets very low to the ground, tucks his head, puts the back of his shoulder on the ground, then, as he [somersaults] over, arches his back and brings his feet down flat, keeping his tailbone off the ground.”
“That move is absolutely painless,” said Mayes. “I don’t have a single bruise.”
THE FACE SLAPS
When Steven Marzolf, as author Thomas Kyd, slaps Hull’s Marlowe, and the Queen (Julia Partyka) smacks Mayes as Walsingham, there are no tricks. “Those are actual contact slaps,” said Hull. The slappers “relax their hands and use the tips of their fingers, so it doesn’t hurt,” he added. “Besides, I’m pretty sweaty by then so it kind of slides right off.”
— Anne Taubeneck
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onthetown@tribune.com
