Rapier skill enhances UW student actors’ job appeal

Should some 17th-century blackguard have besmirched any aspect of your honor, the rapier and dagger would have been essential allies in the defense of your good name.

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If modern circumstances – a role in the University Theatre/Madison Repertory Theatre production of “The Three Musketeers,” perhaps – should require you to wield a sword, you will want to be in touch with Paul Dennhardt.

You might also want to look him up to add to your collection of theatrical skills you can offer the marketplace.

Dennhardt, a faculty member in the Department of Theatre and Drama, is a master of theatrical sword fighting. As the “Musketeers” fight choreographer, he is a crucial resource to the production and its cast.

Dennhardt counts about five professional-caliber sword fighters among the “Musketeers” actors. He will be one of that number, appearing as d’Artgagnan’s father and a guard. Another pro in the making, MFA candidate and third-semester sword student Troy Dwyer, will play Musketeer Aramis, one of the leads. Drew Vidal, a former Dennhardt student, is working his first professional job as assistant fight choreographer on this production.

“Being proficient in sword fighting can give an actor quite an advantage in competing for jobs,” Dennhardt says. He adds the skill also contributes to expertise in timing, teamwork, overall coordination and physical flexibility. The careful attention to the “Musketeers'” weaponry will enhance historical accuracy as well as give individual actors more market appeal, Dennhardt says.

“The play takes place in 1625, the golden age of sword fighting,” he says. It also was the golden age of dueling: “In one 20-year period some 4,000 members of the French nobility were killed in duels. The weapons of choice in those days were the rapier and dagger. They were much more accurate than the pistols then available.”

The slim precision of the rapier blade, combined with the decisive parry of the dagger, requires a particular physical approach, Dennhardt says. “We’re looking for circular movement,” he says. “As swords became shorter and lighter in the 18th and 19th centuries, fighters needed to adopt a more linear style.”

After all, he adds, in sword fighting you never know what will give you that all-important … edge.