THEATER:Pulling out all punches

You wouldn’t want to mess with Martin Noyes. He’s capable of dealing out a good pummeling — not that he ever would. Noyes, South Coast Repertory’s doubly talented actor and fight director, paradoxically has never thrown a punch in anger, although he’s administered quite a few for entertainment purposes.

Audiences at the repertory’s latest two productions, “Bach at Leipzig” and “Ridiculous Fraud,” have applauded Noyes’ work as combat coordinator and, during one week of the latter play’s engagement, Noyes himself.

As the understudy for Matt Letscher, one of the three squabbling brothers in Beth Henley’s quirky comedy who finds himself in a knock-down, drag-out skirmish with his elder sibling — and who had a prearranged conflict during the production — Noyes had the opportunity to perform his own fight choreography for a week. Who better, since Noyes is first and foremost a professional actor.

“If the violence on stage isn’t believable, it undercuts the play,” says Noyes, who has been acting since childhood when he launched his career on the same stage he’s now using as a combat arena.

The strapping 33-year-old got his first taste of professional theater in the repertory’s 1984 production of “A Christmas Carol,” which also featured, as Scrooge’s “turkey boy,” a fellow 11-year-old actor named Timothy Titus — my son, who now occupies this column when the old man is unavailable. He and Tim were among the older members of the repertory’s Young Conservatory in the cast and became good friends.

Noyes’ fight choreography on the Henley play was called “startlingly realistic” in this column’s review of the show, while in “Bach at Leipzig” he added, again quoting yours truly, “some extended, and exhausting, swordsmanship segments.”

Though acting has long been his first love, Noyes considers himself “less of an actor than a theater person — I can do it all now.” He credits his parents, both teachers, with instilling the love of creativity in him at an early age.

A native Orange Countian — born in Orange, raised in Irvine and now living in Tustin — Noyes began stage fighting at 15 and “got a lot of ‘violent jobs’ ” in action-oriented productions as a result.

He attended three colleges before he found his true calling at the University of Alabama. “I refined my fight skills in grad school,” he said. His stage combat skills have since garnered him dozens of awards.

Since he’s been injured several times while plying his craft, Noyes stresses the importance of safety in fighting on stage, noting “I take a lot of pride in control, both emotional and physical.”

Although real violence is scary, Noyes maintains that an actor who can make it look authentic can mesmerize an audience. “Stage combat really is an oxymoron,” he insisted. “You have to be 100% in control at all times.”

Recently, Noyes conducted a seminar on the Segerstrom Theater stage for the repertory’s “Inside the Show” series, demonstrating how he choreographed the fight scene between two of the brothers, and the third by extension. The small audience, about a third of which had seen “Ridiculous Fraud,” appeared impressed, particularly when Noyes illustrated the finer points of his craft by hurling himself repeatedly at a recliner chair.

He pointed out that, as an actor himself, he knows how to best communicate with actors when choreographing a fight scene. “You want the fight to underscore the brilliance of the play,” said Noyes, who had the opportunity to work in tandem with the play’s author, Pulitzer Prize winner Henley, during rehearsals.

Noyes is working on the “nasty fight scenes” for the repertory’s upcoming production of “Pig Farm,” but beyond that his next assignment is anybody’s guess, since fight directors, like actors, get work one job at a time.

South Coast Rep’s season-closing production next spring will be Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” and Noyes is licking his chops at the prospect of staging the climactic dueling scene. But, he admits, the play’s director, Dan Sullivan, may already have someone else in mind.

He could do a lot worse, though, than tap the talents of Equity card-carrying actor and outstanding fight director Martin Noyes.