![\"'All](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/GoodsteinMusketeers1.jpg\")
<\/a>Simotes says the UConn program trains the actors well. \u201cThe MFAs are being taught by Greg Webster, who is a terrific actor as well as fight choreographer. We\u2019ve had him at Shakespeare & Company. When I found out I was doing this job and he was going to be helping me, I felt really blessed because this play literally has a swordfight on every page.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simotes also has the assistance of James Jelkin and Olivia Saccomanno, both third-year MFA students who are choreographing the fight scenes as well as having roles in the production, which is an adaption of the Dumas novel by Linda Alper, Douglas Langworthy, and Penny Metropulos.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like teaching someone who\u2019s never thrown a baseball to throw a baseball and make it look like they\u2019ve been playing in the major leagues for a few years,\u201d Jelkin says. \u201cYou have to walk their body through every step, piece by piece. UConn is a very physical acting program in general. If you\u2019ve been accepted into the program, you\u2019ve got some kind of sporting background.\u201d<\/p>\n The preparation for the actors in the production includes a website that is part of what is known as dramaturgy, the process of shaping a story for acting. In the case of \u201cThe Three Musketeers,\u201d the website includes details about the Dumas story, relationships between the main characters, a general history of the time period, photos of the architecture of the Palace of Versailles and Luxembourg Palace, and video clips of sword fighting scenes from film adaptations of the novel, from the \u201cPirates of the Caribbean\u201d films, and CRT cast production rehearsal fights.<\/p>\n Saccomanno says that in addition to their training as actors, MFA students work to get into \u201cthe best physical condition of our lives\u201d in order to maintain their focus and concentration in a role, especially those that are physically demanding.<\/p>\n In rehearsals, Simotes says, he has drawn the parallel between fight scenes and wrestling matches, which may only last two or three minutes but requires an all-out physical and mental effort. Then the actor returns to his or her lines in the story.<\/p>\n \u201cEven more than being in physical shape is the concentration and the ability to be there. You make one wrong move and you can seriously injure someone,\u201d Saccomanno says. \u201cOnce you\u2019re done with the fight, you\u2019re not done with your concentration. Where does this fighting take us in the storyline? A fight is like a pivot point in the storytelling. The way it ends \u2013 it\u2019s broken up, someone is hurt \u2013 is driving us along in a new path. The focus the actors and fighters have to have is intense.\u201d<\/p>\n Another challenge for Simotes, Jelkin, and Saccomanno with the sword fighting action is the lack of stage direction. In most dramatic plays, playwrights indicate specific movements and location of the actors on stage. There are no such directions for the physical action, much like Shakespeare\u2019s plays.<\/p>\n \u201cDoing Shakespeare I\u2019m used to not having stage directions. The directions, if the actor is sensitive to it, are in the text,\u201d Simotes says. \u201cSo many modern plays give you a detailed description of the setting. In this situation they\u2019ve combined a little bit of both, except when it gets to the physical action. It literally will say: they fight, or D\u2019Artagnan proves himself. They allow us to create the story. We\u2019ve stood there in rehearsal and asked: What are they really saying here? It\u2019s like a puzzle to be solved with what our particular story is.\u201d<\/p>\n While the action of the fight scenes and the romance in the story may be what many in the audience remember, Simotes says there are deeper issues explored as part of the history of the period, a time when the French monarchy was in transition. The actors discover that contemporary issues resonate with the story of the Musketeers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really have some great conversation about what\u2019s taking place in the play,\u201d he says. \u201cThere is a consequence about what we\u2019re doing, so there is the sociopolitical ramification to these things, where a village can be starved or an army can be slaughtered or an individual can take a knife to another individual. It\u2019s not just an adventure story about a hero. I\u2019ve tried to challenge the actors in their characterizations to really come up against what it means to hold a sword, to take a life, to be aggressive or to be passive when you do become the victim. It\u2019s been a terrific kind of research and development process for them as well. When you are in an acting class, it\u2019s one thing. When you hold steel, it\u2019s something completely different because of the reality of that blade. You are dealing with something that historically has given power to both bad and good. It\u2019s a fascinating process.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>