Amanda (Tracy Michelle Arnold) takes aim at Elyot (Robert Sella) Photo: Liz Lauren

I now see Private Lives once a week to check in on it. I have to admit something—the fight at the end of the second act still scares and thrills me every time.

We spent weeks in rehearsal developing the fight. We began by plotting important moments of the fight (who starts it, who hits who in what order, where the lines come, and how it ends). Then, with a huge attention to the safety of the actors involved, each of the actions of the fight is carefully constructed.

Important to this fight is the mess that Amanda and Elyot make of the apartment. They break things, throw things, and overturn furniture. It is a kind of reckless abandon which releases the tension that has been building throughout the act. Each of those moments was a careful discussion of both the action and the object. There is a table on stage that gets overturned which had to be redesigned multiple times to get it to turn over just right every night. Somehow they got a round table not to roll!

Before every performance the actors do a fight call in which they move through the fight at half speed. At half speed you can see the control and comfort they have with the action. You can see the way in which it is like dance choreography—two people moving together, rather than in opposition.

Throughout the play Elyot and Amanda are equally matched. The fight is no exception. The intention is to build a fight in which you can believe that they engage in it mutually and either might win. They go blow to blow evenly until the action is interrupted.