Scott Witt is President of the Society of Australian Fight Directors and the current Associate Director for the Queensland Theatre Company. He has been working in stage, television and film since 1984, acting and/or Fight Directing for Queensland Theatre Company, La Boite Theatre, Zen Zen Zo, as well as other companies.  He is currently completing his Masters in Fine Art at Queensland University of Technology in Stage Combat and Fight Direction. 

"Illusion and Reality: The Balance of Stage Combat" was first published on Dashing Blades in late 2003.

The ironic combination of these two opposing forces- illusion and reality- is what I believe is at the heart of stage combat. Without this understanding and distinction an actor can never hope to really grasp the art.

 The understanding and correlation I like to draw from my readings of Sun Tzu are not based on my desire to fight any one else. If I am to apply his works and philosophies to acting (and modern day life for that matter- I’m sure he wanted people to practice his preachings in their everyday life) I can take this small passage of his writing as an example:

Generally, those who occupy the place of conflict early,

Can face their opponent in comfort.

Those who occupy the place of conflict late, Must hasten into conflict troubled.

To find everyday correlations in his teachings I could look at the above passage as an actor readying my approach to perform stage combat in choreographed routine. If I think of the situation, scene and my partner, if I the actor am truly in a place of readiness, understanding and have a strong sense of the art form and how I am to use it to convey the story further, then I can face that opponent (the opponent in this case being the choreographed routine) in comfort. If however I am an unprepared actor with no real understanding of what I am to do physically or emotionally with the opponent then I will rush the moment, gloss over elements and possibly hurt someone. I will hasten and be in trouble.

What is also fascinating about illusion and reality is the obsession with ‘reality’ some actors have – “Did that look real?… I want it to be the truth man…”

Where do I start!? After all what is real and what is the truth? Is truth a perspective from where you remember an event, is it something that is about to happen? When was something real? When we remember a truth (with a view to play that truth) have we tarnished it with retrospect?

When an actor has created a world of truths for themselves (based on the part and the story etc.) it is easy to watch that person- they are in the now! When an audience is not observing technique it must be easy for them to follow the story that is being told. The analogy I draw on is this: if you are reading a story on the page you do not want to see the lines on the page or the publisher’s notes. After all, the story is what’s important not how it got there.

But I will leave that conundrum alone for the moment. My point, I guess is that as I said at the top of this article these two thought go hand in hand; Illusion and Reality - a balance needs to be struck, without it an actor will be lost. Not many actors ask; 'Did the illusion work?' If one is obsessed with only one of these attributes the other will suffer.