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Swordsman puts edge on stage fights Photos by Bob Pennell James Peck, left, as Montano, and Andrew Borba, as Cassio, rehearse the brawl scene from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of "Othello." Fencing experience gives OSF's Sipes ring of authenticity By BILL VARBLE Steel thuds on steel as actors Andrew Borba and James J. Peck trade sword thrusts and parries on stage at the Angus Bowmer Theatre in Ashland. "Stand by for brawl, please, at half-speed," stage manager David Weiken calls. Borba, Peck and eight or nine other actors walk through the big fight scene in "Othello" until Derek Lee Weeden, who plays the title character, enters and the action stops. Peck confers with OSF's movement and fight director John Sipes, who says his job is unique in the American theater. "Stand by for the brawl," Weiken says. This time it's chaos in real time. The choreographed mayhem hits a snafu when Peck, who's playing Montano, misses a sword tossed him by another actor. "Complete miss on the sword," he says, shaking his head. They take it again from the line, "Come, come, sir -- you're drunk!" This time Peck snatches the sword out of the air. The entire fight call lasts but 10 minutes and includes all the major fight moves in the play, which begins in less than an hour. It's a matter of having a lot of little things just right. "If something goes wrong, there's very little chance to improvise your way out of it," John Sipes says. As the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's movement and fight director, Sipes is the guy who puts the fight in sword fights. When there's swordplay in "Othello" or "The Three Musketeers," the actors are marching to Sipes' drum. They go through the moves before the performance for safety. "It gets it back in your body," Weiken says. The swords are real, and the margin for error is slim. "Don't try this at home," somebody says. Sipes' job is unique. "As far as I know, I am the only person in American theater like me," he says. Sipes, 47, is a native of Louisville, Ky. He was artistic director for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival before former OSF artistic director Henry Woronicz hired him in 1995. Sipes taught theater at Illinois State University at Normal from 1983 to 1985 and has extensive credits in acting, directing, mime and movement. He studied ballet and fenced competitively. Part of Sipes' job description is to put together a fight scene from a manuscript that may have no more clue than the instruction, "they fight." Other times there are clues to the action in the script. "It's a continuation of the story," Sipes says. Misses happen. When Borba dropped a sword in an early performance of "Othello" this season, Peck had to fight an impulse to help him out -- hardly the action of a foe. In addition to fights, Sipes does "style work," telling actors how to stand and sit and bow and move. In a play such as Sheridan's "School for Scandal," every entrance involved a bow or curtsey. Sipes says you can get the details from contemporary books. The actors in "Othello" use Schlager blades -- weapons designed for close use in the German dueling societies of a century ago. They're light, strong and wide. "I like them very much," Sipes says. "They're very safe." The Schlagers in "The Three Musketeers" have different hilts and guards and a better ring to them than the ones in "Othello," Sipes says. There's also a difference in the swordplay of "Othello" and "The Three Musketeers." The former is based on early competitive fencing. The latter is more a rapier form, using small swords developed as pistols were coming more into use. There's a repertoire of standard thrusts and parries passed down in both fencing and theater, but Sipes prefers to use as few of the academic positions and moves as possible -- a practice that leads to fights that look less stylized and more brutal than some audiences may be used to. "I maintain that's probably how most people fought," he says. "Most fights were messy and violent. I try to make it as violent as possible." Once he scripts the moves, he's open to the actors making some changes. "Jamie (Peck) and Andrew (Borba) are very inventive," he says. "It has to feel right for their bodies." He says actors have incurred a few tiny cuts, but nothing serious. The hardest part is developing moves that are absolutely correct but fit the characters. "It's more difficult to choreograph a slap than a battle," he says. It also depends on the theater. The small, intimate Black Swan pretty much requires contact for a punch or a slap. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA