Swashbuckling swagger

Kristin Harty
Cumberland Times-News

May 10, 2009 11:38 pm

— FROSTBURG — Professional swashbuckler J. Allen Suddeth had some good advice for students at Frostburg State University Sunday afternoon.
“Have fun,” said a sword-wielding Suddeth, who demonstrated a comedic scene by lounging in a chair and blithely fending off an attacker.
“Play with it. Don’t stab each other in the eye.”
Swords clinking, students engaged, lunging and stabbing and shouting — in short, swashbuckling, which Webster’s defines using adjectives such as “blustering,” “swaggering,” “boasting” and “bullying.”
In theater, it’s a type of swordplay that is starting to make a comeback after falling out of favor to more historical types of stage fighting.
A Broadway fight director who trained with the stunt double for Erroll Flynn almost four decades ago, Suddeth worked with about a dozen FSU theater students during Sunday’s workshop.
“It’s a style that’s sort of freewheeling,” said Suddeth, 56, of New York. “Passionate, potentially humorous and less historical, so it’s not locked into an old dusty book. It’s what you think of when you think of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ It’s very theatrical.”
And it’s tricky. Sean Jeffries’ brow was sweaty after an hour of sword-wielding exercises on stage.
“It’s just a lot of movement,” said Jeffries, a senior theater major who helped choreograph fight scenes for last weekend’s performances of “The Pirates of Penzance” at Mountain Ridge High School.
“It’s like probably a cardio-kickboxing class. It’s that much intense movement.”
Suddeth, who is one of only 14 fight masters in the U.S. Society of American Fight Directors, travels the country teaching workshops and coordinating stage fights for theater. He’s coordinated fights and/or stunts in nine Broadway shows, more than 100 regional shows and more than 1,000 television episodes — mostly on soap operas such as “All My Children” and “Days of our Lives.”
Earlier Sunday, Suddeth adjudicated six FSU theater students, grading their end-of-semester performances in rapier and dagger fighting.
Everyone passed.
“I’m looking for technique, I’m looking for acting, safety, centering, breath,” Suddeth said. “... It’s complicated. There’s hand-eye coordination, major muscle groups, minor muscle groups, timing, partnering. There’s a lot going on.”
Though the swords used by actors are blunt, they are otherwise identical to actual weapons, said Darrell Rushton, FSU theater professor.
“For all intents and purposes they are real because they are based off of historical models,” said Rushton, who has trained with Suddeth and is a certified teacher with the Society of American Fight Directors. “They are steel blades, but they are not sharpened.”
Suddeth was a 19-year-old student at Ohio University when he trained with Paddy Crean, Flynn’s stunt double. Crean, who was 66 at the time, taught Suddeth an exercise to master the “moulinet,” which he shared with students Sunday.
“A moulinet is a big circle with the sword,” said Suddeth, demonstrating while standing by a wall. “Make the biggest, fattest circle you can possibly make, and don’t hit the wall...Also, don’t cut your own ear off.”
Contact Kristin Harty at kharty@times-news.com.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.