Weapons to go offstage [Yale bans realistic stage swords in response to VT massacre]

Yale Daily News ^ | April 20, 2007 | by Courtney Long, Staff Reporter and Copy Editor

[SAJ]

And shoelaces, too, no doubt. They make such fine garottes, dontchaknow.

[Xenalyte]

XENA SEZ: It's almost impossible to stage a fight with non-metal weapons. Steel has a look and a sound that spectators know, and wood cannot achieve that.

You maybe could, with a couple VERY good Foley artists behind the scenes, because it's easy enough to replicate the sound of steel on steel, but it'd be prohibitively difficult to time the sound effects to the blows.

Also, wooden weapons just don't have the heft that steel ones do. It's much harder to fake difficulty swinging a two-pound wooden rapier than it is a fifteen-pound steel greatsword.

Frankly, it's an insult to the actors, and were I one of them I'd refuse to do it.

[Teacher317]

Oooh, you got served!

[wideminded]

What are they going to do with the fencing team?

[Xenalyte]

The airlines’ product was used in the 9/11 attacks.

No one has yet alleged that Cho stabbed or sliced anyone.

[Rutles4Ever]

Apocalypse Brunch
Lord of the Curtains
The Nannies of Navarone

Imagine the possibilities!

[philled]

“Calling for an end to violence onstage does not solve the world’s suffering: It merely sweeps it under the rug, turning theater — in the words of this very play — into ‘creamy bon-bons’ instead of ‘solid fare’ for a thinking, feeling audience,” she said. “Here at Yale, sensitivity and political correctness have become censorship in this time of vital need for serious artistic expression.”

It would be great if this person's "artistic expression" inspired the use of those large, brightly colored, foam swimming pool noodles in the battle scenes to underscore the absurdity of the policy.

The swordsman, wielding the ridiculous instrument, could pause in battle and offer an aside:
"It matters not if I triumph. All that matters is that you, the audience, are kept safe from the theatric portrayal of violence. Please, use this battle scene as an intermission- as nothing consequential can come this encounter."

[andy58-in-nh]

We’re taking the swords away from you because we don’t know who the nuts are.

That's easy: they're in the Faculty Lounge.

[TGIAO]

No, that won’t do, Global Warming and all.....

[napscoordinator]

lol. You are right.

[jalisco555]

Idiocy! Well, there goes Julius Caesar and Hamlet!....

Not to mention Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story. There's a scene in Guys and Dolls where a character produces a pistol. Will that have to go as well? What plays will high schools be able to produce? Probably Rent and Angels in America will be all that are permitted.

[Xenalyte]

Dude. I would TOTALLY do that.

[mutley]

Instead of duels, perhaps dance-offs can be substituted.

I started laughing when I read that...then it hit me...that's probably not far fetched. Woe is us.

[Sensei Ern]

The Three Basketeers

[andy58-in-nh]

What are they going to do with the fencing team?

Synchronized mincing.

Either that or they'll be re-enacting "Pickett's Charge", only like this:

[Dick Bachert]

Sorry. Forgot about the methane ban.

Will someone — er — break the news to the livestock?

[spunkets]

"Blame Cho not the school. When 9/11 happened didn’t the airlines take measures to ensure safety? This is the same thing. No?"

No. Cho was psychotic. The school's reaction here is completely irrational.

[BenLurkin]

Silly

[goldstategop]

Stupid liberals. Time for Sword Control!

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Xenalyte]

Bite your tongue! ;)