Shakespeare gets physical

BY ANITRA ROWE

STAFF WRITER

 "I'm so tempted to throw in a rib kick," said Kathrynne Wolf, with a wry smile, as she paced around two young actors.

 Wolf, a member of the artist ensemble Babes With Blades, tried to fight the urge "to go slapstick" as choreographed the Shakespearean fight scene, but the girls watching on gleefully begged for more fake, safe violence.

 "This is going to be so hilarious!" one girl shouted.

 Everyone will die, no one will get hurt -- that was the tag line of the Viola Project's stage combat day workshop April 22 at The Theater School at DePaul University , 2135 N. Kenmore Ave. The Viola Project is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to empowering young women through the understanding and performance of Shakespeare's plays.

 Ellie Kaufman, managing director of the Viola Project, said most of the workshops center around a Shakespeare play or a theme, but Wolf's visit to a Viola Project workshop last summer inspired this purely physical class. Babes with Blades is a non-profit that works to expand opportunities for women in stage combat.

 "The girls had so much fun, we decided to center a whole workshop around stage combat," Kaufman said.

 Sixteen girls, age eight to 17, attended the April 22 workshop and learned how to fall safely, complete basic punches, kicks and slaps, convincingly pull hair and strangle one another, and brandish a sword and sword fight. The girls also rehearsed scenes, Kaufman said.

 About an hour before a workshop review of new skills learned, Wolf choreographed two teen actors in a scene between Othello and Amelia in Shakespeare's play Othello.

 "This servant is facing off to you!" said Wolf, trying to inspire Emily, 16, who was playing Amelia, to stand up tall and not cower.

 Emily, who's been to other stage workshops in the past, said she is "interested in stage combat." In the scene that Wolf choreographed, Emily fell to the ground after being slapped in the face.

 "I really like the scene that I'm in," said Emily, noting Amelia's character change as a compelling part of the script.

 Kaufman said the workshop safely creates the illusion of violence and also "teaches students to pay attention to their bodies because every move must be very precise in order to make it look real."

 Patience and cooperation are other stage combat lessons, Kaufman said.

 "Both partners must be working together and really watching and listening to each other," Kaufman said. "Ultimately, it teaches that although it's fun to pretend to fight and to do impressive stances and fight sequences, the real strength comes from not hurting other people."

 Kaufman said young people see actors faking death all the time, on movies and on television, and they think it's fun to try. But Kaufman said stage combat also puts "something that can be scary in one context" into "a whole other context where it's not scary at all."

 Ginger Stone, a self-described "Shakespeare freak," and mother of Shelby, 9, a workshop attendee, said the workshop aims to build girls' confidence, and that's one reason she sent her daughter.

 Kaufman said the class took something that seems intimidating and taught it in a way that's "completely do-able."

 "That's very empowering," Kaufman said. "We're showing girls that they are capable of doing anything."