Babes With Blades celebrates female actor/combatants

Acting, storytelling and physical expression have always intrigued Kathrynne Wolf. As a child, the Mount Prospect native and a friend staged a fight in a library parking garage hoping it would convince someone to call the police.

“We didn't know what we were doing in terms of staging a fight,” she said, laughing.

Having studied Taekwondo and fencing as a youngster, the DePaul University graduate trained in Tai Chi, stage combat and other disciplines.

That led her to the Babes With Blades Theatre Company. Founded by actress/fight choreographer Dawn Alden around 2003, the company emerged from a series of showcases Alden organized to highlight female actor/combatants.

“A moment of physical conflict on stage is a pure form of acting,” Wolf said. “You have to engage physically, emotionally, viscerally and intellectually ... it's extremely challenging and rewarding when it's done well.”

Eager to use her skills, Wolf gave Alden her number with a note that read: “If you need fighters, call me.” Wolf joined the ensemble soon after and has battled regularly on Chicago-area stages ever since.

A longtime feminist ensemble, Babes With Blades revised its mission in November to incorporate theater artists of marginalized identities to ensure “all voices are heard,” said artistic director Hayley Rice, whose late mother, First Folio Theatre co-founder and artistic director Alison C. Vesely, was an accomplished stage fighter.

“I saw my mother swing a broadsword in 'Macbeth,'” said Rice, a Babes With Blades member since 2017. “When you're never told you can't do anything it never occurs to you it's not an option.”

As far as members know (and they check regularly) Babes With Blades is the only theater company of its kind, said Rice, a First Folio artistic associate.

They produce adaptations, Shakespeare plays and new works, many developed through the company's Joining Sword & Pen competition and Fighting Words script development program. Each has one thing in common.

“Our audience might be very angry with us if we produced a show without a single fight in it,” Wolf acknowledged. “Our core audience is passionate about that.”

If conflict is the essence of drama, she said, physical confrontation is the “pinnacle of emotional conflict.”

In that case, stage combat can be intrinsic to storytelling, said longtime ensemble member Alison Dornheggen, particularly in the insight it affords.

But for every onstage fight, it's imperative to have a backup plan. No one knows that better than Dornheggen.

During a performance of the company's inaugural Joining Sword and Pen play showcase, a prop gun failed. That's not uncommon, Dornheggen said. That's why actors have a plan in case a firearm misfires or a blade breaks.

It happened to the actress/director/fight choreographer in 2007 during the final moments of “The Girl in the Iron Mask,” adapted from Alexandre Dumas' 19th-century novel. Dornheggen, as the titular character, prepared to battle an opponent armed with a sword concealed inside a walking cane. As her opponent drew the sword, it snapped.

“Her eyes went deer-in-the-headlights,” she said.

Recalling the gun incident from the previous season, she signaled “trust me” and substituted a faux strangulation for the planned skirmish.

“That's a perfect example why safety and trust have to be established between two fighters,” she said.

“(You're) not the only person in the fight,” Dornheggen reminds her stage combat students, “your partner's safety is your responsibility as well.”

Safe combat isn't Babes With Blades only concern. Members insist they will “keep doing this until there's no longer a need to keep doing this ... until we reach gender parity in creating shows that present all of humanity as complex, messy and human ... until we get our point across,” Rice said.

The goal is obsolescence, said Dornheggen, to exist “in a world where seeing women fight is not an anomaly ... where any actor can play any role.”

When she joined 17 years ago, Wolf imagined a time when a feminist theater company wasn't necessary.

“We're still here,” she said. “And we're not going anywhere.”