Kayfabe
a vocab word that’s definitely not faked.
This video was made 14 (?!!?howcanthatbe?) years ago by a student of mine, wrestling name of Crazy N8. This little short was composed, scripted, choreographed, and edited by him. Performed by him and a few of our stage combat club members/advanced stage combat class students at the time, including me. He composed this video for a project in another class, wherein he was assigned to describe a passion of his, career-wise. He recruited us all in his class/club, and we helped him out with his project. I think it’s adorable; I daresay you’ll agree. (It being all the way from 2010, though? I don’t believe it.)
You’d think pro wrestling would be a big part of my field of stage combat, but I haven’t gotten involved in it as much as I might like to. Obviously, the pro wrestling thing is closely connected to stage combat and stunt fighting, especially for live theatre, as far as the sorts of techniques we use. But you’d be surprised how separated out the two art forms are. Maybe it’s because of the necessity of kayfabe for the soap-opera-like throughlines of wrestling. Being associated with theatre ruins the illusion?
Nate (N8) showed up to my stage combat fundamentals class in 2006 or 7, informing me that he was heavily involved in the local pro wrestling scene, and he wanted to learn stage combat so his fighters would, and I quote: ‘…stop fucking themselves up.’ He saw the culture (and lack of physical education) was getting in the way of making the bouts as good as they could be. He remained my student in that class and beyond: advanced class, as a regular in the stage combat club, and more until he graduated not long after the above video was made. And all through that, with all the arts he learned from me, I never got involved in the wrestling scene, but remained in the theatre. He went on to do some really interesting local things in wrestling, though of course any live performance art, including that, got rather hamstrung in the pandemic.
Wrestling is drag
Not *a* drag, but drag.
There are so many parallels: the over the top performances, bright shiny and sparkly (and often scanty) costumes, the elaborate stage names and personas. Wrestling is even more theatrical, arguably, in that any wrestler will have a role to play in the sometimes long story arcs of the soap-opera-like matches. That’s why I equate pro wrestling with stage combat: that’s exactly what it is—the combatants aren’t actually competing in the moment, they’re executing choreographed physical stories, with the winner(s) already set ahead of time. That doesn’t, in my mind, take away from the fun of watching it, the entertainment factor, or even the suspense of wanting to know who'll take the championship belt. It’s just that it’s theatre, not a sport.
A brief sojourn into Danhausen: So this guy is just one example of a wrestling persona that I happen to find completely delightful. Danhausen is just named after his own last name, with his makeup a combination of kabuki and drag. His shtick? He’s a demon from a dark realm, and will cast spells on everyone he encounters, in the form of invisible lightning bolts that shoot from his fingertips. The reason I like Danhausen so much is the glee factor he brings to the ring (no, not the shitty high school musical TV show, I mean *real* glee. Joy. Happiness). He’s smaller and lighter than most male wrestling hulks, and quite agile to boot. He stays in character even in the odd interview, as well—his kayfabe is solid.
Kayfabe
What’s kayfabe mean, then? It refers to an essential part of any theatrical performance: A willing suspension of disbelief.
I go into this concept in my second of two rants about Method acting, so visit that piece if you want more details, but the nutshell is as such:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge first coined this phrase, of a concept that’s been essential to the art of theatre since before classical times. But we use this particular phrase ever since his coining, to refer to the pact that is agreed upon between a performer and an audience. Basically, what ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’ is, is the voluntary mode an audience member goes into, where she ‘forgets’ that what she’s looking at isn’t real, in order to be able to enjoy the story presented to her. Of course, unless she’s a little child (and tbh often not even then), she doesn’t really forget that those are actors onstage or onscreen, that those aren’t real people and real violence and real etc.—she just agrees to suspend her disbelief in order to enjoy the show.
And that’s what kayfabe refers to, just in a pro wrestling context: all the characters there, their conflicts and relationships, wins and losses, etc. are portrayed as real and not staged. The actual word ‘kayfabe’ has unclear origins—as far as I can tell, it’s old school carnival slang for ‘be fake.’
be fake = kayfabe
…yeah okay I can sorta see that.
Fake it? I hardly know it.
My stage combat manual came out in 2006, and …hm? What’s that? Yes, I’ve written a textbook. It was used by a few colleges for a couple years there, and… Okay, here: Stage Combat: Fisticuffs, Stunts, and Swordplay for Theatre and Film.
I…don’t know how I feel about this book anymore, to be honest, and I don’t even know if it’s still in print. Though I suppose it is—I actually got $1.51 in royalties last quarter. Go me. Ahem. Anyway:
My book came out in late 2006, and so in 2007 I started doing a bunch of readings as publicity events. I’m pretty good at planning this sort of thing, even this long before I started booking burlesque popups, from my theatre background (and academic connections). And, since my book was a literal how-to about stage combat, I’d often conscript some knots of my students to come along and demo.
One of my first events was at a coffee shop, who did new-book events as a sort of open mic night. So I and a group of 6 students choreographed a group ‘bar’ brawl that we planned to perform as part of my reading. It would involve a slow-motion run (complete with ‘Nooooooo!’), a knife-throw trick, and some basic unarmed moves. Oh and I believe one of the actors got stabbed in the gut. Or maybe it was slashed, I don’t remember—I don’t have this choreography written down anywhere. But it was a knife to the gut, somehow, and we got to create some blood packs. This was all educational stuff, people—they were my students and they got a good body of knowledge from joining the club and doing some extracurricular events like this.
So we got a good short sweet scene set—the fight would begin at a cue: I would be describing the arts of stage combat and would then mention that WWE wrestling was stage combat. That it was fake. Then one of the actors, standing at the very other end of the room, would improvise some lines to the tune of being quite offended that I would say such a thing. I would ask him to calm down, and try to explain, and he would get angrier, until my way of silencing him would be to throw a dagger across the room into his throat (an easy trick that’s remarkably safe and always so fun). That’s when the ‘Noooooo’ actor would come running, and a full-group staged brawl would ensue, some of it on the stage area, some in the audience.
We arrived early to the coffeeshop to rehearse this fight—we made sure our placement was correct and safe and good, we went through the knife throw a few times to make sure the (albeit over the top) effect was, well, effective. We went through the whole thing at half speed, three quarters speed, and full stage speed, which is standard protocol for a fight call.
Time came for the performance, and it was a pretty full audience. I was in full swing with my spiel, and got to the part where I mentioned pro wrestling. The actor, leaning against the far wall, responded as planned. We had a brief back and forth, and then? The unexpected happened.
The barista came over to the actor, and asked him Sir please calm down and keep it quiet. Please, sir, or I’ll have to ask you to leave. The actor’s astonished and terrified face as he looked up at me, way across the room, the question WHAT DO I DO NOW almost audibly emanating from his eyes, was a moment for the ages. So I shrugged, threw the dagger. He caught it in his throat, fell; the barista retreated, embarrassed, and the rest of the fight sequence ensued as rehearsed.
That student became famous amongst us and his friends for almost getting kicked out of his own performance. Wow what a great actor you are, we laughed, that the VERY SAME barista that was THERE DURING REHEARSAL thought you were serious. That’s acting, bro. There was also that one lady in the audience who offered the stabbed actor a bandaid, rummaging in her purse as the actor wailed melodramatically, candy red blood smelling of laundry detergent oozing from between her fingers.
How does that happen? How does a person who noticed a group of people rehearsing for *a couple hours* then manage to change their mind and make themselves believe that it’s real? A busy barista? Well on the one hand, it hadn’t been busy during the time we were rehearsing, but also: we rehearsed for about two hours, doing those same moves over and over again, doing the lines, albeit improvised, multiple times and not quietly. We even checked in with him when we arrived and told him what we were doing, so we wouldn’t worry anybody there, and so that this very thing wouldn’t happen. But when the time came, the kayfabe was more powerful. Suspending his disbelief, indeed.
Just because pro wrestling is ‘fake,’ does NOT mean it’s not athletic, difficult, a set of high level gymnastic skills, well executed when good, very entertaining, a valid performing art, etc. It also doesn’t mean it doesn’t get rough or dangerous. As you noticed if you did your homework and re-read my Realism and Method dual essays, it’s a major beef of mine when authenticity is equated to quality. That’s a false equivalence: wrestling is fake, but it’s awesome. Sorry to break the kayfabe, gents, but it’s true. But that’s okay, right? It reminds me of what’s called The Great Game in Sherlockian lore: the shared agreement in the ‘gentle fiction’ that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were real historical people, that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was Watson’s literary agent, and that all that stuff really happened. It’s not true, and the players of The Great Game know it; but it’s a delightful kayfabe that the fans join and agree with, for fun. They’re not delusional, they’re just having a good time. Make-believe is fun for adults, too, and it can actually be good for the mental health, if done in a healthy way. Pro wrestling fans know. Sherlockians know. Mr. Rogers would be proud.
This middle-aged, punished-by-a-long-career body won’t handle any wrestling these days, I can’t imagine, but maybe I could get involved somehow? There is a regular wrestling plus burlesque event that goes on pretty often in this state, which. Hey. Two things I’m interested in. Problem is, it’s in Colorado Springs, which is too far, otherwise I’d totally be into it. Maybe. Could I kick it, though? Likely not. Too late for me, even with good kayfabe.
Unless I can use a sword.