Stage Combat: Unarmed (with Online Video Content)

Chapter 1:

Strangling

'An attack which appears to constrict or squeeze
the victim's throat to prevent them from breathing.'

Strangles are the first technique we will look at that use Victim Control. This is a safety concept whereby the victim is in control of what is happening, thus preventing them from hurting themselves.

Reversal of Energy is another safety concept whereby the energy of an attack is directed away from the perceived direction of force, again allowing the victim to remain in control of the technique. In strangles, it can help us establish Victim Control.

To see how these concepts work in practice, let's look at different ways to strangle someone on stage.

Let's start with the version I always teach first because it incorporates both Victim Control, Reversal of Energy and many other ideas that an actor should learn and be familiar with.

The Reverse-Energy Strangle

A Reverse-Energy Strangle is when we approach from in front of the victim and use both hands to strangle them. To keep this as safe as we can we need to make sure our hands are in the correct position for the attack.

Hold your hands out as if you are holding a bottle in each hand. Now overlap your hands so that the webbing between your thumbs and forefingers are directly on top of each other. It should look like a U-shaped collar that will fit comfortably around your partner's neck. I refer to this as the 'Safety Collar'. I have also heard it called the 'Dove of Peace' and, perhaps less encouragingly, the 'Butterfly of Death'.

This is the shape your hands will form during the attack.

Get eye contact first of all, to make sure your partner is ready.

Raise your hands up to throat height as you approach and keep your hands in line with your partner's shoulders to prevent the risk of accidentally poking them in the face with your fingers.

With relaxed hands and arms, make a sound on the victim's chest by patting both hands against their chest muscles (pectorals). This is called a 'knap'. Avoid striking onto the collar bone - try to find somewhere that is comfortable for the victim. The action should be just like clapping your hands together - nice and relaxed with no force transferred beyond the surface of their chest. Pat onto their chest then bounce the hands off a short distance as soon as you make contact.

The purpose of this knap on the chest is to allow the attacker to take the energy of the strangle into the attack without endangering the victim's throat. It also produces a sharp sound which helps to convince the audience of the aggression we are displaying for them.

Allow your hands to form the U-shaped safety collar and place this around the victim's throat. The top of your safety collar should rest directly under their jawbone and your fingertips should rest lightly on the side of their neck.

This is where the Reversal of Energy and Victim Control come into play.

The victim should now take hold of your arms (just above the wrist - and avoiding grabbing the joint). They are now responsible for pulling the attacker's hands in towards their own throat to keep them in place during the struggle.

Throughout, the attacker continually attempts to pull their hands away from the victim's throat to make sure they are not putting any pressure on the vulnerable area at the front of the neck.

This is the Reversal of Energy - the energy of the attack is going in exactly the opposite direction to the way it would be going in reality. It also creates tension in the arms of both actors which is exactly what you would expect to see if it was happening for real.

The attacker should pull away with slightly less energy than the victim is pulling in to allow the victim to be in control and to help keep the hands in place during the technique.

These two concepts are the things that keep the victim safe. Because the victim is in control, and because we are using the Reversal of Energy, the victim should just be able to let go and the attacker's hands will then immediately come away from their throat because that's the direction the attacker is pulling them.

Dos and Don'ts

Do talk to each other and check that there is no pressure on the front of the victim's throat.

Do check that the attacker's arms are not being squeezed unnecessarily hard.

Don't fall into the stereotyped backwards and forwards shaking action. Not only is this fake but it also puts the victim in danger.

Don't let the attacker shake the victim from side to side either. Remember this should be Victim Control, so the victim should be in control of all their own movements.

Do check and make sure you are each in control of your own bodyweight. Don't rely on the other person to hold you up or stop you falling over.

Dramatising the Strangle

Now that we have the basics of the technique, we need to look at performing it and making it exciting and believable for the audience.

Firstly, we need to create the appropriate physical picture that tells the story clearly and effectively. We call this Picturisation, and it is a concept that runs through everything we do in stage combat.

In the story of the strangle, the attacker is the person winning the fight at that moment. So their status should be higher than the victim's at that moment.

The victim should hunch their shoulders and drop their chin on top of the attacker's hands to help hide any gap that may appear, and to make it look like they are trying to make the target as small as possible.

The attacker should keep their arms bent during the strangle. This creates a much stronger image for the audience.

The victim should bend their knees to make themselves look smaller, more vulnerable and weaker than the attacker.

The attacker should make sure they stay upright and tall so they look like they are dominating their victim.

The victim can lean away from the attacker slightly as if they are trying to get away. But not too far - they don't want to fall over.

The attacker should keep a wide, balanced stance to help them look strong and in control.

Breathing is also important when trying to convince an audience that you are being strangled. Try to avoid the trap of holding your breath. Not only is this unrealistic but it also puts you at risk of passing out.

However, the victim is not going to be able to breathe normally, so how can we alter our breathing pattern to simulate the idea that we are having difficulty getting air into our lungs?

As the victim, your breath should become more audible as the airway is apparently being constricted.

Breaths should be taken at irregular intervals.

Inhalation and exhalation should become irregular and more random. For example, don't always follow your in-breath with an out-breath.

The breath should be centred a little bit higher than normal to make it seem more desperate and more gaspy. Just be sure that you don't pant or hyperventilate as this can cause you to pass out.

Intention

Now you have the technique and you have some ideas about how to make it look and sound realistic. There is still one thing missing from a performance point of view and that is Intention.

In acting, the terms 'Intention' and 'Objective' can often be used interchangeably.

In stage combat, a character's intention is not the same as their objective. The objective is always 'What does my character want?' Intention, however, is the character's physical and emotional commitment to their objective.

I tend to talk to actors and students about different levels of intention and I encourage them to use a scale of 1-10 where 1 represents 'I want it but I can't really be bothered to try and I don't really care if I succeed or not.' An intention level of 10, however, means 'I want this so much that I will walk through fire, barefoot over broken glass and impale myself on your sword to achieve it - even though it will be the last thing I ever do!'

Different characters and different situations will call for different intention levels. But remember that in reality a strangle is only meant to do one thing - kill. So it is your job as the actor to find an appropriate intention level that gives sufficient energy to the strangle to make it look real to the audience and yet still allow you and your partner to feel safe and confident in performance.

It is up to the actor playing the victim to give us a real sense of the struggle they are going through. The progression of that struggle from shock and fear through to desperation and then weakness as the lack of oxygen takes its toll.

Video 1: The...