Stage Combat Class Prepares Students For Stage Fighting
Swords slash through the air and clang against protective shields as students take up arms to duel. While most classrooms at Green Hall are filled with computers on tables and others are art studios, classroom 1008 serves as a gymnasium for practicing combat. Inside, the sight of students armed with wooden staffs and metal shields combined with the sound of a swelling musical orchestra in the background, making for a classroom unlike any other.What feels like a realistic combat zone is simply a Liberty theater class.
In order for audiences to be drawn into the story and the world of the play, acting needs to be believable; if not, then audiences will not be as immersed as they can be. This is especially challenging for combat in plays, where fist fights, sword fights and physical attacks need to look real without any of the actors getting seriously hurt in the process.
While making stage fights look believable but safe is a challenge, two classes at Liberty instruct theater students how to do so. Stage Combat I and II (THEA 421 and 423 respectively) are part of the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting program. In these courses, students learn how to properly act out fight scenes in a safe way while still maintaining a realistic appearance.
In class, students split into pairs and practice with each other, swinging their staffs and clashing shields with their opponents. In a final move, they leap towards their opponent, slamming their staff against the opponents’ shield, ending with the satisfying clang of wood hitting metal. While the fights are not real, the moves taught by the professor and performed by the students make them look as close to real as one can get.
Andy Geffken, a Liberty alumnus, has served as the teacher of stage combat at Liberty University for the past nine years. After earning his bachelor’s degree in communications at Liberty and his master’s degree in theater at Regent, Geffken applied for a teaching job at Liberty’s theater program and was hired shortly after. While he initially thought that teaching would be redundant and tiresome, he said he learns new things every time he teaches the material and has a lot of fun demonstrating these new discoveries to his students.
Ashley Banker, one of Geffken’s students, described his classes as engaging and inspiring. She said his passion for acting is contagious.
“After taking the stage combat class, I feel so much more prepared for shows with combat in them,” Banker said. “I am comfortable learning and performing choreography with a variety of weapons, and I am confident in using proper technique and safety precautions to prevent injury.”
Gretchen Eckert, who played Hermia in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” said she was able to take what she learned from Geffken’s class and properly act a scene where her character attacks another onstage. Eckert said that she was thankful for learning how to channel her energy so the action looked painful and realistic without actually hurting anyone.
“It is important to be precise and in control of the situation, even if it seems like the character is completely out of control and carried away by emotion,” Eckert said. “Taking his class gave me the knowledge of conveying intention in my actions, while also keeping everything under control and safe.”
Geffken described stage combat as an acting form in and of itself. If the fight on stage is too uncoordinated and disjointed, then audiences will not be drawn in, and if the fight gets too intense, then audiences will be too concerned for the actors, drawing them out of the story. Finding the right balance is key, which Geffken aims to do through his courses.
“It’s obviously a very focused and precise discipline. So, it’s not haphazard and it takes an awful lot of precision,” Geffken said. “Yet, to be able to swing swords around and to be able to pull off a fight that looks very real but, of course, is very much in control, that’s kind of a thrill.”
Asher Notheis is a News Reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @AsherNotheis.