I want to be clear about this: I've only ever hit a woman in a theatrical setting, but there was more to it than that, as I will explain.
I have to backtrack my life in the blog a few months to the beginning of the Fall 1984 semester. One of my fellow Theatre students who came in with me during freshman year asked me to be in her Beginning Directing project. She was supposed to have done it during the Spring semester, but she had been going through a lot of drama at the time and somehow managed to get Dr. R to give her a grade and she would present the final project the next year. She was one of the few people who asked me to be in her directing projects.
She had asked this freshman girl named Ald to be the other person in the scene with me. I was first aware of Ald because she had gotten cast in the Theatre Department's production of "Charley's Aunt." Pretty soon, Kird (who was also in the cast) started dating her, even though he was living with another girl at the time.
The first time I actually met Ald was when we had our first rehearsal for the scene. I cannot remember what play the scene was from, but it required me to slap the other character. Every time we rehearsed it, I would do a "stage slap," in which I would pretend to hit her, but actually make no contact. When done correctly, it looks like a slap to the audience and is pretty dramatic, even without the actual sound of a hand smacking someone's cheek. As we continued to rehearse, this was the way I performed the slap.
One day, Kird told me about how Ald was complaining about my acting ability. He said the crux of it was that I wasn't really slapping her. I got ticked off about this. I was a junior and I didn't need a freshman getting on my case about my acting. (The truth of the matter was that she was actually a good actress and I was delusional about my own talents.) I did not want to become one of those kinds of actors who physicalize everything on stage. I preferred the tried and true methods of proper stage combat in which no one really gets injured, but it looks like it hurts.
I knew that I would actually connect on the slap during the next rehearsal. A funny thing happened, though. The director asked us to mouth the lines without actually saying anything. I was actually impressed by that suggestion. We mimed through the scene and then we come up to the slap. I connected and after we had been all silent, it was the loudest noise that had been made in five minutes. It shocked the heck out of her! I immediately broke character and asked her if she was okay. She was and there was no bruising.
Every time we rehearsed the scene after that and during the performance for Dr. R, Ald always did something to deflect the slap. She would put her hand up or move her head to reduce the force of the blow. It really deflated the intensity of the performance. I wonder if she ever complained about another actor after that.
Ald did not return to ENMU the next semester. I did find out what happened to her after that. She finished up her education at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. She got married to this guy who went to her high school. He had graduated the year before her. After that, she performed as a Uzbek/Persian/Eastern Classical and Folk dancer and also worked as an archaeologist for a few years. She later became a high school history teacher in Anthony, NM and eventually moved to Ruidoso, NM. Her husband is also a teacher. They never had any children.
As for the director, I think I found her, but the photos on Facebook only sorta kinda look like her. However, I'm pretty certain it's her. She never graduated from ENMU, but went on to Wayland Baptist University. She majored in Education and now lives in Clovis, NM. It doesn't say, but I assume she's teaching. She got married, but I can't tell if she had any kids.
I have never struck another woman since, in either the theatrical or the real world.
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