BEING READY FOR A FIGHT.

BEING READY FOR A FIGHT. During the time that I found myself on stage playing Gonzalo in THE TEMPEST, I learned a lot about how I should carry myself, even though I wasn’t very good at carrying myself. One thing I was taught was the difference in being prepared to fight. Consider the scene where Gonzalo and others are awakened from a spell by Ariel in time to forestall a plot on the King’s life. My first instinct, in order to show that Gonzalo was ready to take action, was to assume essentially the ready position that a basketball player takes—the so-called “triple-threat position”—described here as “Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, and in a slight crouch.” Crouching in a balanced position is natural in a lot of modern sports. It would be disastrous in a fencing match where one wants to present as small a target as possible. Somebody who is ready for a sword fight stands erect with one foot ahead of the other and the hips turned. And the idea is that all movements by gentlemen in that century were shaped by that ingrained stance. After all, at any moment, an insult might require one to draw his weapon.