Fight Clip Club: Noises Off

Sardines, sardines…

Since I’m choreographing some funny business for an upcoming farce (The Cottage), some of which includes a stair fall, I thought I’d visit some famous farce slapstick work here in Fight Clip Club. We actually did this play at my high school, and unfortunately that’s most of what I can find online when it comes to sharing clips from it–high school productions. But I did happen to find a few professional clips, and a few more what looks like good community theatre footage, too. There is a famous movie version of Noises Off starring Carol Burnett, John Ritter, Christopher Reeve, Michael Caine, etc. but it’s not very thoroughly clipped online.

And so I thought I’d present things a bit differently today–instead of analyzing one movie scene, let’s analyze the stunt itself, across different actors, productions, media, and choreographers. The ‘fight’ scene I’ve chosen? The famous Act 3 staircase fall.

Seeing this stunt performed a few different ways, I’m sure it’ll become obvious why we stage combat guys often get hired to choreograph slapstick as well as actual scenes of violence. Especially when it comes to a big dangerous move like this, it’s best practice to have someone come in and coordinate it, who knows their way around safely portraying violence.

(The stair fall I’m coordinating right now isn’t nearly this long, elaborate, or dangerous, but I’m still there to make sure the actor does it safely. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: falling down onstage is some of the most dangerous movements an actor will ever be asked to do.)

Fight Clip Club is the only paywalled series in Zuko’s Musings. If you’d like to join the club but can’t manage the fee, just let me know.