Clothed only in boxer-briefs and sneakers, they hefted their weapons— make-shift bludgeons made from large bouncy-balls duct-taped to the ends of broomsticks—and took fighting stances.

“It was a postmodern joust,” said Sack.

Ducking and leaping through each other’s blows and spinning their giant lollipop-like weapons with obvious skill, they savagely attacked one another.

Meeting a blow from Guest, Sack’s weapon splintered in two and the top half flew into the crowd. Throwing down the splintered remainder, he took a karate stance.

“Finish him!” shouted a member of the crowd.

Casting away his weapon, Guest met his opponent bare-handed. They grappled in the slush until Ben Margo ’04, the new president of the HRDC, pulled them apart by the ears,

“You,” he told Sack, “go through Common Casting.”

“You,” he said, turning to Guest, “For the love of God, audition!”

Interviewed after putting their clothes back on, Guest and Sack said they were pleased with their performance.

When asked why they had felt it necessary to strip to their underwear, the pair laughed.

“It’s a social critique of the whole gage-throwing phenomenon...it’s a mockery of a scene in Richard the Second where a bunch of guys onstage throw down gages and soon there’s a whole pile,” Guest said.

Most spectators said they saw the stunt as a hilarious practical joke, laughing and cheering during the “show.”

However, David C. Kowarsky ’05 said he respected the duel as a work of performance art.

“I was in a seminar with both Austin and Graham about dramatic structure and plot analysis,” Kowarsky said. “We discussed how interesting the results can be when they play with where the boundaries of the art begin and end.”

Margo said he wasn’t certain the stunt would draw people to Common Casting.

“If Austin Guest and Graham Sack in their underwear convinces people to come, maybe there’s something wrong,” Margo said.

—Staff writer Michael A. Mohammed can be reached at mohammed@fas.harvard.edu.