Frantic Assembly 9780367030841, 9780367030858, 9780429020308

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FRANTIC ASSEMBLY Frantic Assembly have had a powerful and continuing influence on the popularisation of devising practices in contemporary theatre-making. Their work blends brave and bold physical theatre with exciting new writing, and they have collaborated with some of the leading theatre-makers in the UK. The company’s impact reaches throughout the world, particularly through their extensive workshop and education programmes, as well as their individual and collective impact as movement directors on landmark, internationally successful productions such as Black Watch and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. This volume reveals the background to, and work of, a major influence on twentieth and twenty-first century performance. Frantic Assembly is the first book to combine: • • • •

an overview of the history of the company since its foundation in 1994 an analysis of the key ideas underpinning the company’s work a critical commentary on two key productions – Hymns by Chris O’Connell (1999) and Stockholm by Bryony Lavery (2007) a detailed description of a Frantic Assembly workshop, offering an introduction to how the company works.

As a first step towards critical understanding, and as an initial exploration before going on to further, primary research, Routledge Performance Practitioners offer unbeatable value for today’s student. Mark Evans is Professor of Theatre Training and Education at Coventry University. He trained with Jacques Lecoq and Philippe Gaulier in Paris and has published widely on performer training and physical theatre, including: Movement Training for the Modern Actor (2009), The Routledge Companion to Jacques Lecoq (2016) and Performance Movement and the Body (2019). Mark Smith is a Lecturer in Theatre at the University of York. His research examines the interplay between processes of devising, writing and physicality in contemporary UK theatre. He has worked as a theatre director and dramaturg, and he writes regularly for the British Theatre Guide.

ROUTLEDGE PERFORMANCE PRACTITIONERS Series editor: Franc Chamberlain

‘Small, neat (handbag sized!) volumes; a good mix of theory and prac­ tice, written in a refreshingly straightforward and informative style… Routledge Performance Practitioners are good value, easy to carry around, and contain all the key information on each practitioner – a perfect choice for the student who wants to get a grip on the big names in per­ formance from the past hundred years.’ – Total Theatre Routledge Performance Practitioners is an innovative series of introductory handbooks on key figures in contemporary performance practice. Each volume focuses on a theatre-maker who has transformed the way we understand theatre and performance. The books are carefully structured to enable the reader to gain a good grasp of the fundamen­ tal elements underpinning each practitioner’s work. They provide an inspiring springboard for students on twentieth century, contemporary theatre, and theatre history courses. Now revised and reissued, these compact, well-illustrated and clearly written books unravel the contribution of modern theatre’s most char­ ismatic innovators, through: • • • •

personal biography explanation of key writings description of significant productions reproduction of practical exercises.

Volumes currently available in this series: Robert Wilson by Maria Shevtsova Etienne Decroux by Thomas Leabhart Robert Lepage by Aleksandar Saša Dundjerovic Frantic Assembly by Mark Evans and Mark Smith For more information about this series, please visit: https://www. routledge.com/Routledge-Performance-Practitioners/book-series/ RPP

F RA N TI C AS S EMBLY

Mark Evans and Mark Smith

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Mark Evans and Mark Smith The right of Mark Evans and Mark Smith to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-03084-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-03085-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-02030-8 (ebk) Typeset in Perpetua by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

List of figures Foreword by Vicky Featherstone Acknowledgements 1

BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT:

A ‘FRANTIC METHOD’?

vii

ix

xi

1

Introduction 1

Beginnings: the 1990s 2

Expanding dramatically: 1998–2012 21

Letting others in: 2012–present 36

Conclusion 41

2

KEY WRITINGS, PRINCIPLES AND IDEAS:

‘ALWAYS FORWARD, NEVER BACK’ The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre 44

Collaboration 45

Physicality 50

Movement and gender 61

Movement and writing: developing the ideas 67

The value of text and movement 73

43

vi

CONTENTS

Learning and training: Frantic Assembly

and education 75

Conclusion 80

3 IDEAS IN PRODUCTION: HYMNS

AND STOCKHOLM

82

Hymns: text reconstructed 82

Stockholm: text and silence 100

Conclusion: from friendship to family 116

4 PRACTICAL WORK: A FRANTIC ASSEMBLY

WORKSHOP

118

The context 118

Fundamental principles 120

Before beginning 123

Physical preparation 127

Group exercises 132

Partner work 134

Weight and contact 137

Lifting 139

Generating physical material 143

Workshopping the material: exploring the potential

of what is made 148

Winding up 149

The presumptions 150

Starting points for devising text 154

Performing/acting/making 157

Video 158

Placing practical work in context 159

CONCLUSION

161

International impact 162

Bibliography Resources Index

166

179

181

FIGURES

1.1 Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett and Vicki Middleton

on tour in Cairo in the late 1990s

4

2.1 Fatherland by Simon Stephens, Scott Graham

and Karl Hyde (2017 Manchester International Festival)

52

2.2 Ignition 2017, directed by Neil Bettles. Stratford Circus

Arts Centre, London

79

3.1 Hymns by Chris O’Connell (2005 revival, Lyric Theatre,

Hammersmith), directed by Liam Steel, co-directed

by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett

85

3.2 Hymns by Chris O’Connell (2005 revival, Lyric Theatre,

Hammersmith), directed by Liam Steel, co-directed

by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett

96

3.3 Stockholm by Bryony Lavery (2007, Drum Theatre,

Plymouth), directed by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett

111

3.4 Stockholm by Bryony Lavery (2007, Drum Theatre,

Plymouth), directed by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett

115

4.1 Group warm-up – stretching

129

4.2 Group warm-up – catching the ball, two lines

130

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FIGURES

4.3 Slalom exercise – running around the chairs

134

4.4 Gavin Maxwell instructing partners in balancing

and taking weight in a lift

139

4.5 Gavin Maxwell and Emma Rowbotham demonstrating

how A lifts B from under the shoulder

141

4.6 Gavin Maxwell (left) and Simon Pittman (right)

demonstrate a side lift – balancing weight and lifting

142

4.7 Pairs working on sequences of movements based

on ‘hold’, ‘trace’ and ‘orientate’

145

4.8 Performing the sequence in an unusual space

153

FOREWORD Vicky Featherstone

Looking over the impressive list of Frantic Assembly shows, I realise I have seen virtually every single one. I was not even aware that I was their number one fan. From their radical and surprising re-imagining of Look Back in Anger in 1994, which I saw as an angry young director myself, to the heart-breaking and world-dominating Things I Know To Be True by Andrew Bovell, which I saw with my daughter as part of her GCSEs. It seems all great theatre companies should begin with Look Back in Anger – it bodes well, but how could they possibly have known or imagined that 28 or so shows later they would still be going? It has seemed so effortless, following them on that theatre journey. I didn’t even realise it was happening. And I think that sums them up really, their work is so inviting, so engaging, it always feels like a new discovery and has never felt tired or predictable and is always surprising and brand new. Why have they been so enduring and influential when so many of the other brilliant companies created by like-minded peers as they leave higher education to venture into the real world have early major influ­ ence and success but then sputter and die? What was the key that meant that 30 years of making work is still shouting loud and clear? In the beginning, Scott and Steven and their brilliant partner Vicki spent a long time deciding what things shouldn’t be. Boring, traditional,

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FOREWORD

predictable, Chekhov. They were confused by performers playing char­ acters with names that weren’t theirs and talking about a character journey. They believed that inspiration should come from everything – absolutely everything: a lyric, a photo, a novel, a joke, a slight experienced or felt thing – and that that was allowed, celebrated and necessary to make work which sat in the concerns and culture of now. Watching them work, each thing, each element of inspiration, each tiny idea was given the space to be amplified, played with, valued or discarded. Time was given to it, ideas and space. These were slow explorations of fast-lived things, and broke open our way of seeing and feeling about the every­ day and normal. They worked with writers, designers, performers, DJs who shared this need to interrogate and fall in love with the detail. Things I saw would blow me away: a pulsating house in Zero, a box opening up with a light inside it, whole apartment blocks on stage, an entire scene played upside-down while we watched it from below – and amidst the visual and the aural, the tiny moments of humanity expressed in touch. Longing and gesture, which broke open your heart and never set it back together again. Abi Morgan and I worked with them on Tiny Dynamite in 2001. It was a labour of love. We both knew that we wanted to create some­ thing that explored the complex and tender relationship at the heart of the company. The unusual collaboration between Scott and Steven. A relationship which allowed masculinity to be explored and understood, where physical strength and broken-hearted tenderness sat side by side. The work that Frantic have made has grown with them. The inspi­ rations have always remained in the now. The stories got to be about older people. There was more opportunity for educational projects and for bringing in other brilliant artists and collaborators at the heart of the work, to keep it alive and pulsating, as they recognised their own growth and influence. To have achieved all this is exceptional. I imagine one day far off, another production – written by Abi about two much older men – they sit together on a sofa, looking at the audi­ ence. The music starts, a look is shared, a gesture is made and copied, from their bodies starts a story. A story which we can’t know yet, but which will remind us of who we are. Vicky Featherstone May 2020

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank all those who have helped in the preparation and writing of this book. We are particularly grateful to Scott Graham for his enthusiasm for this project, for his encouragement, and for his help in reaching out to so many former company members and col­ laborators. Our deep thanks also to Steven Hoggett (co-founder), Cait Davis, Spencer Hazel, Sean Hollands, Georgina Lamb, Bryony Lavery, Chris O’Connell, Jonnie Riordan and Liam Steel. Our thanks to Mar­ ilyn Rice (Head of Learning and Participation at Frantic Assembly) for helping to arrange our attendance at the Advanced Practitioner Training workshop, run by Simon Pittman (Associate Director, Learn & Train) and Gavin Maxwell (Learn & Train Practitioner), which forms the basis of Chapter 4. We are very grateful for the detailed and insightful feed­ back we have received from Simon, Gavin, Scott and Marilyn on drafts of this chapter. Our gratitude also to the participants in the workshop for allowing us to watch them at work and for giving permission for the inclusion of the photographs used in Chapter 4. Scott Graham has been very generous in identifying images for the book and agreeing per­ missions. Both Coventry University and the University of York have allowed us time to undertake this project, and have given support for travel and interview facilities. In addition, we would like to thank the series editors, Franc Chamberlain and Bernadette Sweeney, for their

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

guidance and rigorous editorial advice, and Vicky Featherstone for agreeing to write the Foreword to this volume. Finally, we would both like to express our deepest thanks to our respective partners, Vanessa Oakes and Catherine Love, for their sup­ port and understanding during the writing of this book.

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BIOG R AP HI C AL A ND

AR T I S T I C C O NT E X T

A ‘ Frantic Method ’?

INTRODUCTION

It is rare for living theatre practitioners to have had such a perceptible influence over such a range of performance work, and to have estab­ lished such a foothold in the curricula of a nation’s schools. But the look and feel of Frantic Assembly’s theatre and their methods of making work have so entered the British theatrical mainstream that it is easy to neglect the impact of their breakthrough productions as observed by early commentators. Aleks Sierz’s review of the company’s 1999 production Hymns sums up the sense of novelty and innovation they generated at that time: ‘Imagine a theatre of the future’, he begins. It’s a theatre of ‘pounding techno music’, ‘partly dance, partly movement, partly spoken word. No attempt at naturalism, very heavy soundtrack, monumental lighting’ (Sierz 1999). Moreover, it is attended by an audi­ ence mostly ‘under 30, dressed in hip urbanwear’ (ibid.). And not only the product or its audience but the process, too, is marked out as inno­ vative: Hymns was the result of what, at the time, Sierz claimed was ‘an unusually collaborative method of theatre-making’ (ibid.). Frantic’s success has been driven in part by a long-standing focus on education, accessibility and outreach, fuelled by the founding direc­ tors’ own professional development through a form of self-curated apprenticeship rather than any formalised training. It also reflects the

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

way that their work has long been closely attuned to the cultural zeit­ geist: the company has always paid close attention to their ‘branding’. Not only has the marketing of each successive production been carefully crafted, but the company’s artistic leadership has also progressed by constant reflection, canny planning, selected collaborations and dialec­ tical refinement of their methods in response to shifting perceptions of their work. This book is somewhat unusual for the Performance Practitioners series, as it is an account of a company rather than a single practitioner. But focusing on the company as a whole is apposite to the collaborative working methods of the company’s founding partnership, Scott Gra­ ham, Steven Hoggett and Vicki Middleton, around whom a constel­ lation of co-creators – variously described as a ‘gang’, a ‘family’ or, indeed, an ‘Assembly’ – have for a long time cohered to create a pow­ erful, recognisable and internationally renowned style. The story of Frantic Assembly is thus one of collaboration, of the long-term evolution of a working ‘Method’ through a series of prag­ matic steps, and of sometimes deliberately obscured influences from the world of theatre, dance, and dance theatre. While the company’s found­ ers acknowledge a range of mentors and inspirations, their emphasis on broadening access to performance for new audiences means that they avoid overt references to the worlds of dance, physical theatre and live art. Also, equally unusually for this series, we are dealing with an active practice whose practitioners are still current – presenting a particular set of challenges in tracking work that is still developing. Through inter­ views with key directors, choreographers, performers and writers, this chapter will trace the company’s curation of specific personal collabora­ tions and the impact of various working relationships in assembling the look and feel of Frantic’s productions and process. BEGINNINGS: THE 1990S

Scott Graham (1971–) and Steven Hoggett (1971–) first met at Swansea University in around 1991, where both were studying English Literature and involved in the university’s drama society. The origins of the com­ pany lie in the Swansea University Drama Society’s 1991 production of Christopher Hampton’s Savages. The show had been created under the direction of Volcano Theatre’s co-founders Paul Davies and Fern Smith; Hoggett performed in the production during its run at the university,

while Graham was in the audience. Graham describes the experience as a theatrical awakening: ‘a moment for me where I suddenly became really awakened to theatre and its possibilities’ (in Steiger 2006: 317). The pair teamed up and took Savages to the Edinburgh Fringe under the name Frantic Theatre, given that ‘Swansea University Drama Society Players didn’t quite match the ambition’ they had for the production (Frantic Assembly 2007). Buoyed by the experience of this production, Graham and Hoggett agreed to continue working together as ‘Frantic Theatre Company’ the following year with a production of As Is, a 1985 play by American play­ wright William M. Hoffman. This they saw as ‘a test to see whether the Volcano connection was a fluke, whether we were popular by defi­ nition of being little baby Volcanoes’ (Hoggett 2019). As they reached the end of their degrees, Graham and Hoggett were invited by Davies and Smith to take part in Volcano’s 1994 production Manifesto, which was to prove a nexus for several crucial meetings and influences, and formed the inspiration for the foundation of Frantic Theatre Company in a professional capacity: It was just an adoration, a blind adoration of Volcano. Because they were excit­ ing, because they were our inspiration, and because they’d, practically, chosen us and nurtured us – we owed it to them. And they were just exciting, exotic people as well. (Graham 2011a)

Frantic Theatre Company was officially formed in 1994 by Graham, Hoggett and fellow Swansea student Vicki Middleton (née Coles), who organised, administrated and marketed the company. By early 1996, owing to a clash with another ‘Frantic Theatre Company’, they became Frantic Assembly.

Vicki Middleton (1972–) is an arts manager, theatre producer and co-founder of Frantic Assembly. Like Graham and Hoggett, she was a student at Swansea University, and worked closely with her co-founders from Frantic’s formation until 2004. Middleton played a crucial role in building Frantic’s profile, and she was responsible for all company administration, sourcing funding, publicising the work, and liaising BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

3

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

with venues to develop a strong touring circuit for the company. She left Frantic in 2004, when she moved to Australia. There she became General Manager of the physical theatre company Legs on the Wall, and then of Company B (Belvoir Theatre) in Sydney. In 2008, she established her own freelance arts consultancy, Middleton Arts. Throughout most of her time as part of Frantic she was Vicki Coles, but for consistency we will refer to her by her current surname.

Figure 1.1 Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett and Vicki Middleton on tour in Cairo in the late 1990s. Source: Photo courtesy of Scott Graham.

VOLCANO THEATRE – A COLLISION OF INFLUENCES

Frantic would not have come about without the inspiration, influence and mentorship of Volcano Theatre. Two of Volcano’s co-founders,

Paul Davies and Fern Smith – like Graham, Hoggett and Middleton – had met as students at Swansea University. They formed Volcano in 1987, driven by their attraction to a ‘heightened performance experi­ ence’ through ‘heightened language and heightened situations’ (Davies in Evans 2001: 136). Through Volcano, Graham and Hoggett were made aware of a wide range of physical performance work and devising practice, particularly the intense physicality of the Eurocrash move­ ment and DV8, whose Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men (1988) was a major influence on Davies and Smith. Having seen that show, Volcano had invited Nigel Charnock, a performer and key early member of DV8, to provide workshops, and later direct, for them (working with them on, for example, L.O.V.E. and Manifesto).

Eurocrash emerged in the late 1980s as an extremely physical form of modern dance. The name is evocative both of its (continental) European roots, and of its often violent treatment of the bodies on stage. Belgian choreographers Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (1960–) and Wim Vande­ keybus (1963–) were prominent in the movement. Vandekeybus’ com­ pany Ultima Vez (founded 1985) produced works such as What The Body Does Not Remember (1987), in which dancers partnered in high-impact contact work and threw weighty concrete bricks through the air to each other. This emergent style was not solely European, with Édouard Lock’s Montreal-based company La La La Human Steps (1980–2015) touring a number of bruisingly physical performances around the world. Mark Murphy’s UK-based company V-TOL (1991–2001) built on these influ­ ences, incorporating projection, text and ambitious design into their choreographic work. As critic Judith Mackrell wrote, ‘Eurocrash turned dance into a battleground of risk, danger and reflex. It was exhilaratingly and alarmingly physical, but it also possessed the expressive range of people exchanging nonstop torrents of abuse’ (Mackrell 1993). DV8 Physical Theatre company was founded in London in 1986 by dancer and choreographer Lloyd Newson with Michelle Richecoeur and Nigel Charnock. The company’s work is strongly driven by Newson’s engagement with contemporary political and social issues. It draws on athletic physicality and choreography derived from natural gesture and contact improvisation to explore the politics of the body, particularly the male body in its performance of masculine and queer identities. Latterly, BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

the works have also used verbatim text drawing on interview material. Newson has collaborated with a range of performers who have them­ selves gone on to successful choreographic careers, such as Wendy Houstoun, Steve Kirkham and Liam Steel. Key DV8 productions include Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men (1988), Strange Fish (1992), Enter Achil­ les (1995) and To Be Straight With You (2008). In 2016, DV8’s thirtieth anni­ versary year, Newson announced that he was taking time out from the company; since then no new work has been produced by DV8.

In the 1990s, Volcano’s primary modus operandi could be characterised as an ultra-political, movement-driven approach which aimed to ‘dis­ turb and sometimes destroy the classics (ancient and modern)’ (Davies 1997: 165) through radical deconstruction and recontextualisation of often well-known works of theatre and literature. Volcano’s shows in the early 1990s involved large quantities of direct address and decla­ mation rather than dramatic action, and an intense choreographic style influenced by Eurocrash. The company’s visceral movement vocabulary amounted, in one reviewer’s estimation, to an embodiment of ‘the aes­ thetic of sweat that has arisen from contemporary club culture’ (Shut­ tleworth 1994). Volcano’s stated purpose was to forge explicit links between physical and political engagement, through ‘the authenticity of the body’ (Davies 2003). In this way, they aimed at both theatrical and social change. As Gareth Somers (2013) argues, the company embodied a post-punk spirit in their energetic anti-technique and appeal to the authenticity of their political and physical identities. Graham and Hoggett repeatedly cite their first encounters with Vol­ cano as having had the desired effect, disrupting their conceptions of what theatre could and should be. Where their previous experience of theatre had been ‘talcum powder headed Chekhov and vanity projects’, Volcano were ‘alternative and sexy’ (Graham and Hoggett 2009: 1). Hoggett recalls watching Medea: Sex War at Taliesin Arts Centre in 1991 as his ‘lightbulb’ moment: ‘I thought they seemed impossibly good’ (Hoggett 2019). However, what really sparked his enthusiasm was the opportunity to participate in a Volcano workshop at the univer­ sity. Being impossibly good on stage risks preserving some impenetrable division between receptive audience and virtuoso performer. Volcano

sought instead to share their approaches and energies through the work­ shops they offered, and Hoggett found it empowering, as a young stu­ dent performer, to have these experienced theatre-makers ‘telling you that you were as good as you imagined you could be’ (Hoggett 2019). Though Volcano’s work was revelatory for Graham and Hoggett, its political and literary roots were not as central to its appeal as the influences the company took from outside conventional dance, theatre and high culture. Volcano’s productions drew on cabaret, pop music and film soundtracks, which Davies and Smith gleefully juxtaposed with more highbrow reference points. Likewise, Graham and Hoggett have been voracious and enthusiastic in their appropriation of pop culture influences. One other point of overlap between Volcano and Frantic’s early productions may be noted in terms of the status of the writer in the work. Volcano demarcated their theatrical territory with a firmly declared rejection of British theatre’s historical focus on the writer. A programme note from around the time Graham and Hoggett first encountered Volcano sets out the company’s stall: Volcano stands for the elimination of ‘sloth and stale achievement’ on the British stage. We have chosen to reject both the use of the script and work of ‘The Dramatist’. Instead, through the manipulation of unconventional texts we hope to arrive at a theatre which is a true synthesis of language and physical dynamism. (V programme 1990, in Somers 2013: 47)

This brief manifesto points to the risk of overstating the ‘anti-textual’ nature of physical theatre. Attempts by critics and academics to gener­ ate some form of delineation or definition of this impossibly diffuse set of practices seem, through their looseness, doomed to instantiate the very ‘distrust of words’ (Heddon and Milling 2006: 6) which some see evidenced in the practices. Volcano by no means rejected ‘text’; their shows were dense with quotation from radical feminist works, poetry and political writings. The object of their ideological ire was, rather, the conventional trappings of dramatic form as perpetuated by production processes in which the script of ‘The Dramatist’ is transmitted via the production of ‘The Director’. Like that of DV8, Pina Bausch, and the choreographers of Eurocrash, Volcano’s work was energetic, performer-centric, episodic and thematically arranged, rather than rooted in a dramatic arc or guided by the writer’s ‘voice’. BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

Pina Bausch (1940–2009) was a German dancer and choreographer whose approach to physicality has had a lasting effect on modern dance and movement work. She led the Tanztheater Wuppertal from 1973 until her death in 2009. There she developed a performance vocabulary from natural gesture and performers’ own biographical material in an intensely collaborative creative mode. Notable works include The Rite of Spring (1975), The Seven Deadly Sins (1976), Bluebeard (1977), Cafe Müller (1978) and Kontakthof (1978). Characteristically in her work, performers are challenged to emotional and physical extremes, set against striking expressionist design and eclectic use of music, sound, text and lighting. The popularisation of the term Tanztheater (dance theatre) by Bausch and her teacher Kurt Jooss reflected the growth of this new, hybrid stage form (see Climenhaga 2018: 18–21).

Though there is no direct lineage, the influence of Bausch’s Tanztheater can be seen indirectly on Volcano’s work, as well as on that of other UK dance and theatre companies of the 1980s and 1990s, including DV8 and Frantic. This impact ‘is seen not always in new physicality, but in the developmental process and use of dance-construction principles to interweave theatrical images’ (Climenhaga 2018: 39). Volcano amalga­ mated and adapted a collage of such working methods, stylistic concerns and performance philosophies. The earliest of Frantic’s professionally performed pieces bear the firm imprint of the approaches learned under Volcano’s tutelage, especially in the relationships of the rehearsal room, the role of the writer and of text, the aesthetics of sweat, and the per­ formers’ at times confrontational relationship with the audience. SWANSEA AND THE WORLD OF WORK

The political moment in which Frantic Theatre formed was one of a fragmenting Conservative government hit by a succession of scandals and violently split over the question of how closely the UK should align, politically and economically, with Europe. The UK in the 1990s was experiencing the rippling effects of a new variation on Conservative politics as Margaret Thatcher’s 11 years as Prime Minister came to an

end and she was replaced by John Major. This change was reflected in an increasingly managerialist ethos shaping governmental policies, which nonetheless continued to emphasise the principles of individualism, low taxation and ‘hard work’ as the root of ‘power and choice’ (see Con­ servative Party 1992). One manifestation of Major’s take on Conservative politics was the expansion of the Enterprise Allowance Scheme. The policy had in fact been created under Thatcher in the early 1980s, but only later in the decade did it gain traction, funding an estimated half a million people to become self-employed by 1991 (MacDonald 1996: 433), including emerging creatives such as artist Tracey Emin and Creation Records founder Alan McGee. The Enterprise Allowance Scheme was intro­ duced as a way of taking people out of unemployment while placing a focus on business planning and marketing strategies; it hence served the twin purposes of reducing unemployment figures and spreading the entrepreneurial values of Thatcherism. Graham, Hoggett and Middleton made a strategic calculation to enrol on the scheme as a means of supporting their first year as a company. Graham recalls that it ‘gave us less money than going on the dole [unemployment benefit]’ (in Frizzell 2012), but provided training and a clear plan for the company as a business. As with their creative practice, Volcano Theatre also provided Fran­ tic with practical advice and models for how a theatre company might operate. In the year following Graham’s and Hoggett’s graduation, each of the three founder Frantic members had their own ‘department’ for which they were responsible. Hoggett was on tour with Volcano in Manifesto, learning the ropes of the touring circuit beyond the Edin­ burgh Fringe and building a list of venues and contacts; Graham spent time teaching back in his hometown of Corby in the East Midlands of England, gaining experience he would quickly put to use in the educa­ tional arm of the company’s work; and Middleton was still in Swansea, finishing her degree and working out the role of company administrator in close contact with the team at the Volcano offices. In a further echo of Volcano before them, Frantic’s founders were all incomers to Wales from England and, post-graduation, Graham, Hog­ gett and Middleton started establishing a new relationship with their adopted home. While Swansea is Wales’s second largest city (after the capital, Cardiff), the area had a population of only around 223,000 BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

(Swansea Council 2020), compared to, for instance, over 2 million in inner London (London Datastore 2020); it appealed to Frantic to be a ‘small fish in a small pond’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 5). Swansea held several attractions for them: it was familiar; Graham, Hoggett and Middleton had burgeoning relationships with Volcano Theatre and the Taliesin Arts Centre; the cost of living was relatively cheap; and it was small enough for them to get their work noticed with relative ease (ibid.). All these reasons are fundamentally pragmatic, though Gra­ ham has later stated that they ‘also liked the idea of being outsiders – of doing things on our own terms’ (in Frizzell 2012). The location helped them to cultivate an underground status, and South Wales more broadly had become something of a hub for experimental physical theatre prac­ tice. Companies such as Brith Gof, Moving Being, and Paupers Carnival congregated there, according to Davies, due to a ‘number of forces that were particular to South Wales: a fully charged political environment; a mature experimental theatre practice; a vibrant community theatre tradition and a slender visual theatre practice’ (Davies 2003: 2). LOOK BACK IN ANGER

Frantic established their early credentials with a quartet of productions which acted as their calling card, launched in 1994 with a bold – some would say heretical – version of a canonical text, John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger.

Look Back in Anger, often considered a landmark in English drama, was first performed at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1956. It centres on the character of Jimmy Porter, his wife Alison and their lodger, Cliff. The play launched the movement known as the ‘Angry Young Men’: writers (and their characters) railing against the experience of being trapped in narrow, domestic and class-bound confines. Osborne’s play is consid­ ered by many to herald a shift in emphasis to a writer-led, socially-aware theatre depicting working-class stories – though this narrative has also been questioned, particularly in the light of broader considerations of the UK and European theatre both before and after the supposed pivot of 1956 (for example, Lacey 1995; Rebellato 1999).

To create this first work, Frantic Theatre turned to a dancer/ choreographer, Juan Carrascoso, and a writer/performer, Spencer Hazel, both of whom they had met through Volcano.

Spencer Hazel (1966–) is a writer, deviser, performer and academic. He started working in theatre while living in Amsterdam, before moving to Manchester to study Drama. There, he developed his interest in con­ temporary performance companies and started writing and devising his own theatre work, also performing a range of backstage roles including lighting and sound design. He joined Volcano Theatre in similarly varied capacities, including touring in Manifesto alongside Steven Hoggett. His writing is characterised by an allusive, rhythmic construction; it is fre­ quently episodic rather than narrative, though he has also written radio drama for BBC Radio. According to Graham, ‘[a]s a writer he was fasci­ natingly anti-script’ (Frantic Assembly 2012: 4).

Carrascoso directed and choreographed, with Hazel responsible for the adaptation of Osborne’s text, and the resulting production was deeply reminiscent of Volcano’s explosively physical deconstructions. The production was small and eminently tourable, with Graham and Hog­ gett performing as two of the four characters. The other roles were cast and recast a number of times due to people’s shifting availability, with performers recruited from among university friends (such as regu­ lar early collaborator Korina Biggs) or through meetings at workshops. All were working for low – and certainly not guaranteed – pay. The set was similarly minimal, notably featuring four ironing boards: an iconic image from the original production’s realist design resituated in the expressive, energetic world created by the choreography. Hoggett describes the style as ‘lots of athletic, aggressive actions, bodies pushing and bounding in unison and props being deployed forcefully but simply’ (in Healy 2012). In explaining this choice for their first touring production, Graham suggests its pragmatic basis: ‘Every theatre company needs a product and we were no different’ (Frantic Assembly 2012: 3), and Hazel cor­ roborates this: ‘The idea behind this was to gain access to the touring circuit by offering something that was well known, but then attempt to BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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stay closer to the original impact of Osborne’s play by offering some­ thing new and unexpected to the audiences’ (Hazel, n.d.). Employing an approach to adaptation familiar from Volcano, Hazel treated this classic text with anything but veneration, embracing the opportunity to continue his experimental approach of ‘deconstructing dialogue and ordering it in rhythmic ways’ (ibid.). Musically, the approach also recalled Volcano’s eclecticism, with a soundtrack in which classical and pop music coexisted: Prokofiev was juxtaposed with Elvis Presley (Hoggett in Sierz 2008: 98). The production premiered on 21 October 1994 at the Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea, marking Frantic’s official debut as a company. Reviews of the early performances tended to support the view that the company members were inexperienced and learning as they went, with the Big Issue’s coverage stating that one false start gave the uncomfortable feeling of being at a University drama club end-of-term production. […] we suddenly and inexplicably find ourselves at a rehearsal where the actors are still struggling with mundane lighting prob­ lems, their lines and stage positions. (Big Issue 1994)

This reviewer may have mistaken some of the production’s deconstruc­ tion for ill-preparedness, but Look Back in Anger certainly became slicker as it continued to tour. By August of the following year, the reviews were largely positive, describing it as ‘magnificent theatre which elides innovation with convention’ (Villiers 1995). A review of the 1995 Edin­ burgh Fringe run argued that, though the company subjected Osborne’s original to ‘mutilations’ such as being played at a break-neck pace and ‘a few perhaps ill-advised distancing moments reading from the script directions’, the play nonetheless ‘survive[d]’: ‘Despite their irreverence, the engaging cast has located the emotional heart of the play’ (Young 1995). The company had launched itself with a production alert to British theatrical history, and ready to disrupt that tradition in seeking to pres­ ent onstage a challenging new vision of young people’s life experiences. COMPANY IDENTITY AND ‘THEATRE-MAKING’

Frantic toured the show, sporadically, for nearly a year, and developed workshop and school residency offerings alongside it. During that time,

Hoggett, Graham and Middleton got by on their Enterprise Allowance wage, but the other performers involved with the company did not have that security, and the company had to recast several times. Hoggett also left the show temporarily in 1995, to go on tour with Lea Anderson’s dance company the Featherstonehaughs, and Hazel stepped into the role of Cliff. From the outset there was a fluid movement of contributors (including Graham and Hoggett) between performing, working with text, designing, and representing the company to the press – Hazel gave at least one interview in which he spoke for Frantic’s intentions in those early days. But the company as a formal entity was centred on Graham, Hoggett and Middleton, who took responsibility for overall artistic decisions and all administration: they would decide which venues to approach, which shows to develop, and everything about the branding of the company, down to the fonts and imagery of their posters. Lea Anderson (1959–) studied at St Martin’s College of Art and Design, London, and then at the Laban Centre. She co-founded the all-female Cholmondleys with Teresa Barker and Gaynor Coward in 1984, and started a second, all-male company, the Featherstonehaughs, in 1988. Her work is notable for its witty, distinctive and accessible style and its willingness to address politics without being dogmatic: the company names themselves riff on the unpronounceability of stereotypically upper-class English surnames (‘Cholmondley’ is pronounced ‘Chum­ lee’ and ‘Featherstonehaugh’ is ‘Fanshaw’). She has received multiple awards, and is an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Laban and the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts, and Regents Professor at UCLA. In 2002, she was awarded an MBE in recognition of her services to dance.

Certainly Graham, Hoggett and their collaborators never seemed at this stage to fall neatly into categorisations of director, choreographer, actor, writer, designer. Had the terminology been as prevalent then as it is now in the UK, they would doubtless all have described themselves as ‘theatre-makers’. They sought similar commitment and integration from the whole company: We liked the idea that any performer on stage at any time knows what’s going on around them. It meant things like if a light blew, we were there onstage to BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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move a light. It meant you were aware of the ingredients that went together to make this show. (Graham 2011a)

This meant that, in the rehearsal room, performers, writers and the company’s artistic management team were all equally responsible for the work. Performer Cait Davis certainly felt like an equal contributor to the creation of Frantic’s shows: ‘I don’t suppose I ever had a sense, even though I knew it, that it was Scott and Steve’s company’ (Davis 2019). Collaboration was in some senses a de facto element, due to the ‘core of two’ structure (Mermikides and Smart 2010: 17) of the company’s artistic directorship. Because of their self-professed nov­ ice status, it was also considered a necessity: ‘Because we knew so little, we didn’t try to dictate what to do: all company members had an input’ (Graham in Sierz 2005: 4). Frantic’s earliest experi­ ences of professional performance were imbued with a ‘workshop culture’ (see Murray and Keefe 2016: 158–164) as they set out to create an open environment in which they themselves were learn­ ing from their collaborators. They engaged with experimental dance and performance by attending workshops and inviting practition­ ers to work with the company, facilitated by Volcano. Thus they came to work with practitioners such as Liam Steel (DV8), TC How­ ard and Christine Devaney (V-TOL), Steve Kirkham (DV8 and the Featherstonehaughs) and, of course, Spencer Hazel. The developing company identity was predicated on an enthusiastic lack of training: ‘We wanted to learn on the job, while retaining the freshness that comes with inexperience’ (Cavendish 1999). In seeking such collab­ orators and casting their early shows, Frantic were also making deci­ sions about rehearsal methodologies and performance style. They were uninterested in techniques of acting, inasmuch as that implies some form of ‘pretence’ or immersion in a ‘role’, and there was certainly no requirement for performers to have formal training in theatre or dance. The original productions they began to develop – Klub (1995), Flesh (1996) and Zero (1997) – were closely predicated on the notion of a ‘gang’ of young performers connecting ‘truthfully’ with the audience: what one reviewer called their ‘illusion of abso­ lute honesty’ (Judah 1998a).

CLUB CULTURE, KLUB POLITICS

The 1980s saw the spread of a neoliberal agenda throughout British politics and society, through the policies and principles of Thatcher’s Conservative government (1979–1990). Much art and culture of the time forged its identity through vehement resistance to the oppressions its makers perceived in the political mainstream. Volcano Theatre was part of this post-punk subculture: they articulated symptoms of, and responses to, demographic changes which accompanied Thatcherite free-market policies. These included the dissolution of communities, struggles to re-ascribe or supersede older regional and class identities and the effects of radical gender politics. (Somers 2013: 45)

Volcano had fought – though not necessarily won – many of the cultural battles that paved the way for Frantic’s emergence, and it is in the earli­ est of Frantic’s shows that the influences of Volcano’s post-punk, postmodern aesthetic are clearest. Previous counter-culture movements had revolved around mass passive political resistance and the rejection of strait-laced interpretations of reality (the 1960s counter-culture and hippie groups), or around the aggressive embrace of anarchic attitudes in resistance to the idea of being governed (1970s punk movements). The dominant youth movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s, club and rave culture, combined aspects of both: the Ecstasy-fuelled affec­ tion for one’s fellow clubbers led to 1988–89 being dubbed the ‘second summer of love’; and the sweaty, chaotic energy of the clubs and raves echoed that of 1970s punk gigs. Facilitated by new music technologies, the club music of acid house and rave was based on thudding four/four beats and loops of repetition, and rejected the conventional pop struc­ tures of verses, choruses and middle eights. Though the ravers and clubbers were roundly dismissed in the pop­ ular discourse as entirely disengaged from society, with politicians and news reports often painting them as pursuing a purely hedonistic, law­ less and dangerously drugs-based culture, the roots and demographics of these movements suggest otherwise. In all-night mass gatherings, in obscure, isolated locations, young people would come together to dance, sweat and immerse themselves in a collective experience of the BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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driving, non-stop rhythms of rave. The politics of the club lie in the rejection of the grey individualism of the decades in which they arose, and in the assertion of the value of the physical experiences of the body (see, for instance, Deller 2019). The politics of Klub, Frantic’s first original production, need to be understood in this light. One reviewer tried to pinpoint the particu­ lar rebellion of the Frantic generation as ‘one of passive withdrawal’ in which, ‘old and disillusioned before their time, the youth of Mid­ dle England have grown up and found they have nowhere to go but the dole queue’ (McPherson 1995). A sequence early in the performance sets up the notion of the ‘club’, a youth space they (and the audience) occupy: ‘Outside this space is IMF, […] BNP, […] RSC’. The gener­ ation depicted is politically aware (they are bombarded in the media by acronyms such as those for the International Monetary Fund and the British Nationalist Party), but far from politically engaged (the realities of the organisations behind these acronyms exist ‘outside this space’). Yet counter-readings of the history of rave (for example, Huq 1999) provide an alternative take: the choice to create and inhabit this space is one of an active rejection of capitalist big business and of right-wing pol­ itics. As Hoggett recalls, ‘we did care what was going on, we did care what Norman Tebbit said to people’ (Hoggett 2019). Tebbit, Employ­ ment Secretary in Thatcher’s early-1980s government, had infamously dismissed the suggestion that contemporary riots were an understanda­ ble reaction to high unemployment: his father, he responded, had been unemployed in the 1930s but rather than rioting he had simply ‘got on his bike’ and looked for work. ‘It was a real bugbear to us. The com­ ment about ‘get on your bike and ride’ came out of his mouth so easily. We were furious about it’ (ibid.). Klub, Flesh and Zero consisted largely of allusive, impressionistic text, mainly in confessional monologue form, interwoven with vigorous dance routines enacting the rituals of clubbing or sexual encounters, rather than aiming for political coherence. But, as Hoggett notes, the shows were distinctly engaged with the realities of the world. Klub illus­ trates how sometimes this is resigned: ‘Would you like to have a job, Scott?’ one performer offers. ‘I would love to have a job,’ says Gra­ ham. ‘Tough,’ comes the response. But sometimes it’s furious, such as a striking sequence towards the end of that performance in which Cait Davis portrays what looks like a drug-induced fit, leading into a

monologue in which we’re told ‘We’re bleeding. We’re anorexic. We have AIDS.’ Like many contemporary dance theatre pieces (such as those of Pina Bausch or Lea Anderson), and a rich vein of contemporary ensemble-devised work, Klub, Flesh and Zero are episodic rather than containing a continuous or cohesive narrative, and favour direct address to the audience over dialogue between characters. ‘There is no plot’, as McPherson (1995) noted of Klub. It is questionable to what extent ‘characters’ are presented onstage: performers in all of the company’s earliest works (up until Tiny Dynamite in 2001) are referred to by their own name, or a version thereof. Though the scripts for Klub and Flesh were attributed to Hazel alone, and bear the imprint of his poetic voice, both the text and the overall performance of these early pieces were developed from group discus­ sions for which the writer set the tone. On the basis of stories con­ tributed by all of the performers, Hazel ‘pilfered, reattributed and fantasised the creation of our performance personas’ (Frantic Assembly 2012: 4). Part of Hazel’s contribution to the company was a concep­ tion of text as but one element of the dramaturgy of the piece, open to cuts, repositionings and reattributions, exactly as were elements in the movement sequences or tracks on the playlist. The direct address form also permitted Hazel’s text to focus, often mischievously, on the interaction between performer and audience. In Klub, for instance, Graham addresses the audience directly, informing us: It would also help if you remember that we’ve come here to watch theatre, not to dance to this criminalised music, so if you could keep your tickets, your pro­ grammes and your critically-detached facial expressions visible at all times that would really help. (Frantic Assembly 1995)

As well as drawing attention to the habitual paraphernalia of the con­ ventional night at the theatre, this speech also makes pointed reference to the criminalisation of raves, enacted by the controversial Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Such sequences sum up the politics and dramaturgy of the company’s work at the time: engaged with the political realities of the moment, and flitting between earnest rebellion, ironic resignation, playfulness and disenfranchised disgust. BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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Klub, only Frantic’s second show as a professional company, was a significant moment of validation for Graham, Hoggett and Middleton. In performing with Volcano and then tackling Look Back in Anger they had proven to themselves that they could work together under their own steam, and organise a company and tour of their own. But Klub proved that there was an audience for their work, and that a piece about – and structured like – a club experience held an appeal and was a viable way of making work. They’d achieved this through the creation of a perfor­ mance which interested and excited them, rather than with any grand design to appeal to an overlooked youth subculture: ‘we didn’t go to theatre ourselves, so we didn’t even know that young people weren’t going. We just knew that we didn’t’ (Hoggett 2019). BUILDING THE BRAND

Klub, Flesh and Zero, packaged together as the ‘Generation Trilogy’, brought more press attention and cemented the company’s growing relationship with Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) and other significant fringe institutions. Very early on, they were picked up by the British Council, which funded tours of Europe and further afield. Within a couple of years of forming a company, Graham, Hoggett and Middleton were taking shows to Hamburg, Finland, Ecuador and beyond, as well as selling out BAC and touring the UK. The mood of the nation was shifting, too – certainly in relation to the arts, which received a series of increases in funding, and a boost in cultural status, following the elec­ tion of Tony Blair’s New Labour in 1997 (see Tomlin 2015: 32–36). With Middleton’s nous and Volcano’s advice, Frantic started to benefit from some of the one-off grants available from Arts Council and cor­ porate initiatives, though their tours were nonetheless organised on a shoestring budget, with set (and cast members) piled into a single van in which the company would drive themselves from venue to venue. Graham and Hoggett have retrospectively dubbed these the ‘get in the back of the van’ years (Frantic Assembly 2012: 3). Frantic had worked to create, through a combination of disposition, influence and canny marketing, a recognisable style: that of ‘warts and all’ direct address (ibid.: 4) coupled with Volcano/DV8-inspired athlet­ icism, loud contemporary soundtracks, and a disinterest in conventional narrative forms. Critical responses identified the company’s appeal to a specific ‘generation’ as rooted in the popularisation of this combination:

Going by the number of young hipsters packing the Assembly Rooms for this, his company’s latest offering of raw dance and fast-talking, street-wise soul exposure, the wordsmith Spencer Hazel is achieving his goal: he is attracting a generation more at home in clubs back to the theatre. (Fellows 1996)

It is noteworthy that, as is evident here, some critics struggled to accommodate the creative and leadership structures behind this evolv­ ing process. Spencer Hazel did speak to the press on behalf of the com­ pany at times, but it was by no means ‘his’ company, and, as discussed above, performers such as Cait Davis also felt like equal contributors in the rehearsal room. Indeed, one of the company’s overt aims in this first phase was to construct a brand stronger than any individual identity or personality. Critical and industry reaction to the brand, which also built on the company’s aforementioned self-depiction as ‘outsiders’, quickly became vociferously supportive. The artistic director of BAC at the time, Tom Morris, spoke in 1999 of his initial impression that the com­ pany ‘seemed to have invented a form of performance that was utterly uncomplicated and immediately engaging’ (in Cavendish 1999). Direc­ tor Vicky Featherstone was another early admirer of their work. She shared in the excitement at their apparently naïve approaches, recalling her first impression that they did not know what the rules of theatre were, in any way. So what they did was genuinely make it up as they went along. They made it up from the people that they were, the moment they were at in their lives, the world that they were responding to. (Featherstone in Graham et al. 2015)

While Frantic’s style and content chimed with youthful audiences and theatre-makers, another reason for such a rapid rise was the attention they paid to the work of building these relationships. Graham, Hoggett and Middleton all devoted time and energy to charming the employees at each venue, and being ‘open and friendly’ (Graham 2011a) to every­ one they encountered. This spirit of hard work and generosity is still emphasised throughout the company’s casting, rehearsals and training, and doubtless contributed to some valuable relationships with produc­ ers and other patrons. They used to refer to this ethos as ‘nicing the BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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shit out of people’: ‘If you’re going to be asking somebody to work a fourteen-hour day on your show, you’d better be nice about it, and grateful. And I think that’s really helped people help us’ (ibid.). THE END OF AN ERA

Zero, the last in the Generation Trilogy, had by all accounts a ‘troubled creation’ (Davis 2019). Because of the strong brand that the company, with incoming choreographer Steve Kirkham, was keen to maintain, they were hoping that Zero would feel of a piece with Klub (which Kirkham had also choreographed) and Flesh. The organising idea for Zero was sparked by the imminent new millennium, and the show aimed to capture the odd mixture of hope, listlessness and anxiety that could be felt as the clock ran down on both the twentieth century and the per­ formers’ twenties. The creation of the show took the now familiar pattern, its basic idea deriving from group discussions but finally decided upon by Graham and Hoggett in consultation with Middleton, and the raw text being drafted by Hazel, with edits and additions very much part of the rehearsal pro­ cess. But as Zero was being rehearsed and developed into a performance, differing creative views arose which led to Hazel deciding to depart the project, leaving the text he had generated to be used as the company wished (and uncredited) in the show. This seems indicative of a moment in which the branding of the company as a whole took precedence over the individual collaborators responsible. Hazel’s stepping away was tied to his belief that the form of the piece should more closely match the uncertainty of the content – a belief which ultimately bowed to pres­ sures to create the Generation Trilogy as a coherent trio of pieces for touring together. While Hazel was interested in a more post-dramatic exploration of a single fractured identity through the voices of multi­ ple performers, Graham, Hoggett and Kirkham were keener to main­ tain the roughly coherent (though fictionalised) personas they had been developing through Klub and Flesh. Hazel’s departure came at a time when Frantic’s founders were also experiencing a disenchantment with their adopted hometown. Though Graham and Hoggett felt they were making ‘Welsh work’, reflecting their experience of years of living in Swansea, they found it hard to develop a relationship with the Welsh Arts Council that would allow them to realise their ambitions for the company. As incomers from

England, they struggled to make a case for their work as ‘homegrown’ and – their relationship with Taliesin Arts Centre notwithstanding – they also found it difficult to tour new work to venues in Wales. When Tom Morris invited them to make their base in London at BAC, the timing felt right. The packaging of these three early productions as a trilogy enabled Frantic to envisage the subsequent collaborations as something different, though it took some time to settle upon the form that this might take. Cait Davis recalls ‘long conversations in Zero and [subsequent show] Sell Out about “what is Frantic?”’ (Davis 2019). The company continued redefining themselves in opposition to what went before; so as Zero was wrapping up the first phase of the company’s history, they made moves towards a more narrative-driven approach. The influence and impact of Volcano on their work is clear, but a rejection of the literary tradition, which is sometimes claimed as an integral factor in devising processes, has never been a prominent feature of the later company’s branding. Much of the history of Frantic has been about such constantly renewed attempts to balance text, physicality, design and silence. EXPANDING DRAMATICALLY: 1998–2012 TOWARDS DRAMATIC NARRATIVE

Following Hazel’s departure, Graham, Hoggett and Middleton started to undertake the first significant redefinition of their company’s iden­ tity, and to reposition themselves within its work. The direction of travel was signalled by their final two productions of the 1990s, Sell Out (1998) and Hymns (1999), both of which nudged their practice and brand towards the broader reconfiguration which continued through­ out the early 2000s. In Sell Out, Frantic openly sought to ‘take the step towards a stronger narrative structure’ (Graham 2005: 4) in approach­ ing the collaboration with up-and-coming writer Michael Wynne. In interview, Graham has described the move as one in which the company ‘started working with proper writers’ (Graham 2011a). While this may sound like a criticism of the quality of Hazel’s work, it is, on the con­ trary, a useful observation of the kind of writing he produced, which had served (and shaped) Frantic’s early direction. Hazel was certainly a writer, across several forms, but he would not characterise his role as that of ‘playwright’ or ‘dramatist’. The texts he produced tended BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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to be experimental. They might (as mentioned above) be considered post-dramatic – though this is not a term adopted by either Hazel or Frantic. Graham and Hoggett from the late 1990s aspired to work with more experienced dramatic writers, seeking collaborators who cared more for the craft of playwrighting than for the ‘curatorship’ of per­ formance that appealed to Hazel. However, as contemporary reviews identified, Sell Out repre­ sented only a partial step towards more narrative-led drama, and the in-house style (augmented by the choreography of TC Howard, who had worked with V-TOL), was familiar from the Generation Trilogy. Lyn Gardner, theatre critic for The Guardian and an early champion of the company, wrote, ‘Like all Frantic Assembly’s work, it talks directly to its audience and directly of them’ (Gardner 1998b). The play’s plot concerns a group of four friends in their twenties, whose close­ ness is threatened by rumour, argument and the breakup of one of the relationships involved. It was based on the scantiest of outlines, which Graham describes as emerging as part of a last-minute applica­ tion for Arts Council funding (Graham and Hoggett 2009: 220). This was subsequently fleshed out by Wynne through workshop sessions in which, notably, he introduced Graham and Hoggett to the idea of using cast questionnaires for generating material on which to base text (see Chapter 4). Through subtly probing questions (see Graham and Hog­ gett 2014: 190–3), he formulated an idea about betrayal among friends and the breakdown of several relationships. Graham and Hoggett recall the ‘depth of spite and general nastiness’ which was revealed in these materials (2009: 220), and there was a steel and cynicism to the result­ ing story which added depth to the otherwise potentially introspective plot. Several critics noted shortcomings in the drama – a ‘schematic’ story and often ‘matchstick-thin’ characters (Gross 1999) – but the ‘remarkable, high-powered’ choreography (ibid.) made an impression on critics and audiences, and was a rare sight on the stages on which Sell Out appeared. TC Howard brought more contact work to the company’s style, according to Cait Davis, and ‘really pushed us in the physical realm’ (Davis 2019). The set, like those for preceding produc­ tions, was simple and stark. The company clambered over its simple mobile steel staircase and cubicle, dangling their legs from the height of the structure, kicking out at each other. One reviewer found some moments ‘so real that one could actually hear the audience wincing’ (Judah 1998b).

With the show receiving attention in the national press and raptur­ ous audiences at BAC, and returning for a month-long run at the West End’s New Ambassadors Theatre, Frantic felt welcomed into the Eng­ lish capital. They embarked with new confidence upon their next show, based on an idea which had certainly been gestating longer than Sell Out’s hurried conception. The following year’s Hymns (which we con­ sider in detail in Chapter 3) continued the shift towards dramatic nar­ rative, and though the characters still retained the names of the actors originally portraying them, the text involved almost no direct address, for the first time requiring ‘acting with a capital A’ (Hoggett in Cooper 1999). Yet despite the support of the likes of Tom Morris and Sonia Friedman (the London producer who first brought the company to the West End), and a growing band of influential reviewers championing them in the national press (Gardner, Logan and Sierz), Frantic still felt like underdogs. In 2001 they spoke to Brian Logan about how, despite a growing international profile supported by numerous overseas tours, and the modesty of their financial requirements, they had missed out on Arts Council and London Arts funding (Logan 2001). The UK gov­ ernment under New Labour (1997–2010) was increasing the amounts available for distribution by the Arts Council, supporting their ‘Cool Britannia’ branding and the development of the ‘creative’ or ‘cultural’ industries as a key element of Britain’s economy and national identity (see, for instance, Hewison 2014; Tomlin 2015). Logan – as well as Graham and Hoggett – expressed some puzzlement when Frantic were repeatedly overlooked in the allocation of these vital regular revenue streams (Logan 2001). NOT (JUST) A DANCE COMPANY

The failure to secure regular funding proved a brake on Graham and Hoggett’s ambitions to step away from performing. As discussed above, they were performers ‘by necessity’ (Graham 2018b) rather than voca­ tion, and aspired instead to roles in the process where they could take an overview of the movement and text work. Feeling that Hymns ‘nearly killed us’ (ibid.) with its lengthy tour of venues the length of the coun­ try, the pair found the idea of an all-female companion piece useful in persuading their co-founder Middleton to let them step outside the per­ formance; this led to their collaboration with writer Nicola McCartney on the horror movie-inspired Underworld (2001). BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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The move away from performing, as well as the shift towards dra­ matic narrative, went hand-in-hand with Graham and Hoggett’s desire that Frantic should be seen not only as a physical theatre company but as one supporting new writing, and where Graham and Hoggett’s role was not merely to provide the physical elements of the work. From Hymns onwards, their characterisation of Frantic’s processes empha­ sised their role in originating the initial idea behind each production. They repeatedly mention, too, that these ideas go through a lengthy development and discussion process before the engagement of a writer and cast. In interview, Graham insisted that ‘[w]riting is something we’re more and more interested in’ (Logan 2001). Perhaps in response to the company’s frequent inclusion in newspaper roundups of more dance-related works, and regular coverage by dance critics such as the (Scottish) Herald’s Mary Brennan, he added, ‘[i]t’s strange that we keep being referred to as a dance company’ (ibid.). Crucial to this repositioning of Frantic’s brand was the artistic revi­ talisation they felt through their burgeoning partnership with Paines Plough. The link came via Hoggett’s childhood friend, John Tiffany, and Vicky Featherstone, the newly appointed artistic director of Paines Plough who had met Tiffany during their time together at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Like Volcano before them, both Featherstone and Tiffany became influential advisors, mentors and collabora­ tors for Frantic. Featherstone directed Graham and Hoggett in two of the last shows in which they would perform, the Frantic Assembly/ Paines Plough co-production of Abi Morgan’s Tiny Dynamite (2001), which went to the Edinburgh Fringe barely six months after the opening of Underworld, and the Frantic/Paines Plough/Graeae co-production, scripted by Glyn Cannon, On Blindness (2004).

Paines Plough (founded 1974) is a London-based, nationally touring company dedicated to producing new plays and supporting playwright development. Vicky Featherstone (1967–) was its artistic director from 1997 to 2004, during which time she appointed Mark Ravenhill as literary manager and a number of significant writers as writers-in-residence; by 1999, Gardner was declaring that ‘in her brief tenure, Featherstone has turned Paines Plough around’, making the company ‘a serious the­ atre player’ (Gardner 1999a). Featherstone went on to become the first

artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland, and in 2013 she was appointed artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre, London. John Tiffany (1971–) is a British theatre director who has worked as literary director for the Traverse Theatre (1997–2001), associate director for Paines Plough (2001–2005), and associate director for the National Theatre of Scotland (2004–2013). His 2006 production of Black Watch for NTS was a huge critical success and toured internationally. He has since directed several major international productions, including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016). In 2018 he was awarded an OBE in recognition of his services to theatre.

The alignment of Frantic with Paines Plough, and their work with Vicky Featherstone in particular, introduced new techniques to Graham and Hoggett’s directorial and dramaturgical toolkit, especially in relation to approaches to character. In The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre, Graham and Hoggett write that ‘[w]orking with Vicky Featherstone was the first time we were permitted the freedom to think in detail about our performance and character work’ (Graham and Hoggett 2009: 205). The examples in the first edition of their book tend to move from the more schematic, count-based generation of ‘strings’ of physical material for Klub to the text-based and psychologically motivated explorations described for Hymns and Tiny Dynamite. This traces the development, through processes involving a widening range of directors and writers, of areas of Graham and Hoggett’s practice which engaged with both the physical and the verbal. Tiny Dynamite surprised critics with the sensitivity and tenderness of its physicality (see, for example, Abrahams 2001; Gardner 2001). It is this production which began the company’s rebalancing from the ‘hur­ tling dance style’ (Hemming 2003) of earlier works to a more subdued gestural work involving a ‘heightened awareness of body language’ (ibid.). Previously, their loose approach to text in performance had been ‘quite rude to writers, really’ (Hoggett in Callery 2001), para­ phrasing and changing lines in the moment. Now, Tiny Dynamite was quite a shock because we realised we couldn’t do that. If we did we lost the play. Maybe because the rhythms depend so much on the words. And we’ve

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never really asked audiences to listen. It’s more that we’ve jumped round the stage saying ‘We’ll show you’. (ibid.)

Graham, too, still identifies this as an important realisation for the com­ pany: ‘In a lot of our work we prided ourselves on its robustness and strength and masculinity, and actually this play had to be fragile, gossa­ mer. So there was very little movement in it’ (Graham 2018b). Tiny Dynamite was an impressionistic three-hander, woven from strands of the close friendship and affection which Morgan perceived between Graham and Hoggett. Working with Morgan and Featherstone had a huge impact on the pair, to the extent that in retrospect both Graham and Hoggett speak of Frantic during that period as having been shaped as much in the mould of the new writing company as they had previously been in Volcano’s image. They have even gone as far as to say that they felt they risked becoming ‘more like Paines Plough with some shapes on it’ (Hoggett 2019), or ‘kind of a watered-down Paines Plough’ (Graham 2008), though clearly Frantic were marking out a different territory, even in this period. The connection and friendship with Featherstone continued throughout the decade (and beyond), and Frantic also returned to a collaboration with Abi Morgan ten years later, with Lovesong (2011). AWAY FROM THE ENSEMBLE

The urge to create a recognisable brand was in tension with a desire to avoid pigeonholing, and Frantic in the 2000s was a stylistically restless and inventive company of great formal breadth. The desire to cast larger shows from a wider pool of performers, and to provide more ambi­ tious design for the work, was supported by the award of a three-year London Arts grant in 2002, later supplanted by Arts Council Regularly Funded Organisation (now National Portfolio Organisation) status. Peepshow (2002) is a case in point, involving a much more complex and costly set design than previous productions: Dick Bird’s design repre­ sented a number of flats in an apartment block, supporting the vignettes of urban isolation woven by Isabel Wright’s text. The show, which used songs by the band Lamb, was described variously as an attempt to craft a Frantic Assembly musical and ‘a music video for the stage’ (Graham and Quelch 2002: 3), evidencing a keenness to experiment with form.

Performer Georgina Lamb, who had been a regular collaborator since the Generation Trilogy, also saw it as a noteworthy broadening of the kinds of performers recruited by the company, opening up the casting to those who had come from ‘more mainstream backgrounds’, many working as television actors, without physical theatre experience or training (Lamb 2019). Only months earlier, Frantic had presented a touring three-hander which, through necessity and timing, acted as something of a throw­ back to the earliest ensemble days of the company. Heavenly (2002) was written by Graham, Hoggett and Liam Steel, after their intended col­ laboration with Gary Owen (who is credited with the original story) fell through. It saw the three men, who had become firm friends through the process of making Hymns together, return to an exploration of death and male friendship (see Chapter 3), though this time framed as an at times broad comedy composed of vignettes of text and performance. All three of them have subsequently spoken of the challenges of trying to write, direct and perform together. Though the results were at times outrageously funny, and the co-creators were able to entertain each other during the process, they found turning this material into the pro­ duction itself ‘torturous’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 26). Critics saw the show as, if not a failure, a hiatus for the company: a ‘consolidation’ (Gardner 2002) of earlier work, ‘limbo’ rather than a ‘dead end’ (Clapp 2002). Dick Bird’s set was rightly praised, and showed the company’s new ambition in this area. Its main features were a curved floor and wall composed of a mass of mattresses, and two identical sofas – one fixed half-way up the wall at a right-angle to the other as if mirrored – all creating a surreal and dreamlike afterlife setting. Heavenly was another hit with audiences – an accessible, witty and invigorating experience – although, in terms of the company’s devel­ opment, Gardner and Clapp were right to see it as an outlier in the expanding range of styles they were taking on. At the other end of the scale of Frantic’s work in this period was Dirty Wonderland (2005), a site-specific performance at the disused (and soon to be extensively redeveloped) Grand Ocean Hotel in Saltdean as part of the Brighton Festival. It featured a cast of nine professional performers as well as around twenty students from the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology, and was again designed by Bird. A 45-minute prom­ enade performance, it was put together in a tight three-week rehearsal process, with the final text scripted by Michael Wynne on the basis BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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of improvisations and experiments with space, design, movement and ideas of intimacy. Playing with perspective and scale, some rooms in the hotel were converted into forests, or were entirely shifted by 90 degrees in a more fully realised and disconcerting version of the trick played with the sofas in Heavenly. The company’s experimentation with form here included a prelude, set on the coach that ferried audiences out to the hotel from Brighton city centre: the journey was hosted by an estate agent character who fed the audience humorously inaccurate misinformation about the streets through which they were driving. Having formed as a close-knit group of regular collaborators who were evolving their methods together through continual workshops, and whose shows involved a maximum of four performers, includ­ ing Graham and Hoggett, Frantic now operated on a scale and range of ambition that demanded larger pools of performers and drew on a broadening set of influences and mentors. When Frantic remounted Hymns in 2005 for the company’s ten-year anniversary, with a largely different cast, one reason given for extensively reworking the produc­ tion was the simple passage of time, and a consequent reassessment of their views of the characters: ‘we were in our mid twenties when we made the show. We are now in our early thirties!’ (Graham 2005: 6). But the link between performer and character – and between the com­ pany’s directors and the stories they presented onstage – had already started to become attenuated. The staging of Brendan Cowan’s Rabbit (2003) represented the first time the company had worked on the basis of a pre-existing text since Look Back in Anger, and crucially the first time they had worked on a piece involving characters distanced from their own ages and experiences, in the depiction of two generations of a sub­ urban Australian family, struggling to communicate. Hoggett identifies his and Graham’s decision to step back from per­ forming to concentrate on direction as key to this evolution in the kinds of stories the company was able to tell, and their relationship with writers: We were never going to ask anybody to write a show about the two of us if we weren’t performing in it. […] we would never ask the writers to write about a company like that, because Frantic had ceased to exist in that format. (Hoggett 2019)

While Graham and Hoggett returned to perform in (as well as co-direct) On Blindness in 2004, and Hoggett performed again in the revival of

Hymns, they were gradually managing to extricate themselves from performance and open up these new narrative possibilities. 2002’s Peepshow was the last time that Frantic would employ a choreographer (Dan O’Neill) to lead that part of the work. Graham and Hoggett now stepped off-stage and integrated the roles of director and movement director in the holistically conceived process towards which, in reality, they had been working since day one of the company. WORK WITH (AND WITHOUT) THE WRITER

The artistic management of the company became even more closely focused on Graham and Hoggett when Vicki Middleton left in 2004. But even as that core team contracted, the award of Arts Council fund­ ing facilitated a larger management team, and required the company to make plans further in advance. The Frantic offices expanded, with a new General Manager, Gordon Millar, being appointed to replace Middleton. In 2006, a new Executive Producer, Lisa Maguire, took on these management duties, and she oversaw the gradual reorganisation and growth of the company, particularly in terms of their provision of educational and training work (see Chapter 2). In artistic terms, this is the era in which Frantic began to work with high-profile writers such as Mark Ravenhill and Bryony Lavery, and to refine their own idea of research and development, and of what they were able to offer the writer. We examine their work with Lavery on 2007’s Stockholm in Chapter 3. Before that collaboration, they embarked upon a project with Ravenhill – though neither party was sure at first that the partnership would work. Increased funding, connections with Paines Plough, and institutional support from BAC and the National Theatre Studio meant that Frantic were able to engage the writer merely to test out this potential working relationship. They entered the process without a particular theatrical end-product in mind: ‘The reason for going into the rehearsal room was the fact that we wanted to work together. We wanted to throw out a process, see what would happen, just going into a room’ (Graham 2008).As Ravenhill also put it, ‘We started with nothing’ (Ravenhill 2006).This work, during a week’s development in January 2005, was mostly on movement, and Ravenhill ‘went away in the evenings and wrote scenes, and we tried putting them together.At the end of the week, I looked at what I’d done – and realised it wasn’t any good’ (ibid.). BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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Within this process, then, there was space for failure, and for dead ends. In an attempt to spark Ravenhill’s imagination, Graham and Hoggett showed the writer a book of photographs by Nan Goldin that they had used previously as inspiration when creating Dirty Wonder­ land. These ‘intimate portraits of bohemian, drug-addled, multisexual friends, of the ill and the bruised’ (ibid.) worked in unlocking ideas for a story about friendship, professional jealousy, and ‘turning your life into a story or a piece of art’ (ibid.), and he came up with the text which then formed the basis for development and rehearsal in 2006. There is a remarkable resource available for those seeking insight into the working methods of a contemporary theatre company, in the shape of Scott Graham’s personal rehearsal room diary for pool (no water) (Graham 2006). As well as breakthroughs and moments of enlighten­ ment, it closely tracks Graham’s own sensations of inadequacy, failure and uncertainty as he felt the process eluding him and Hoggett. Work­ ing with a writer of Ravenhill’s stature and presence is ‘thrilling’ and ‘extremely satisfying’, but I have to admit it was a lot easier before Mark came into the room. I am now very aware of not trying to speak for him. I am also suddenly totally aware that I am running the risk of him saying, ‘Well, actually, that is not what I meant at all.’ (ibid.: Day 2)

Here we see first-hand Graham grappling with precisely what was new and exceptional in this process: that the initial story idea did not come from him and Hoggett, but from the writer. It was now the directors’ job to realise the vision of the writer, rather than vice versa. They found themselves in a rare situation in which they felt open to correction by the writer in the room – that they may be accused of traducing the orig­ inal intentions for the text. That this is new territory for the directors is indicated by Graham’s own comment elsewhere in his rehearsal diary: ‘it is a very strange thing to disagree with a writer about what his char­ acters would do or would want! It does make you ask yourself “with what authority do I say this?”’ (ibid.: Day 6). In fact, Ravenhill was later to comment on his own misplaced preconceptions of the company, and the directors’ strengths as commentators on text: When they came back to me, I was surprised by how detailed and insightful their notes were. I’d wrongly assumed that in the world of physical theatre, the

writer would pretty much have to fend for him- or herself, while the director got on with creating physical shapes. But these two were clearly avid scrutinisers of a piece of writing. (Ravenhill 2006)

Characteristically, the third major show that Graham and Hoggett lined up in this booming three-year phase – after further developing the process of collaboration with writers on Stockholm – involved the active embrace of precisely the above kinds of anxieties about their own authority to tackle text: they adapted William Shakespeare’s Othello (2008). The reluctance to stand still, and the urge to innovate through constant forward momentum, clearly triumphed over other fears. Fran­ tic credit Tom Morris with their decision to take on Othello. He had long before suggested that the play ‘would be right up our street as we were obsessed with sex, jealousy and the destruction of friendships’ (Graham and Hoggett 2008). In placing the play in a contemporary pub on a West Yorkshire estate, they did focus its setting on the familiar Frantic topics identi­ fied by Morris. But the production was also contingent on their deci­ sion to incorporate aspects of the racial and social tensions documented in Nick Davies’ Dark Heart (1998). Ravenhill had introduced them to this book, a journalistic account of the poverty and disenfranchisement experienced throughout the UK at the time. Graham and Hoggett drew on their fascination with the ‘hidden Britain’ described by Davies and with the politically-charged situation around the racially-motivated Bradford, Oldham and Burnley riots of 2001 to create a play dealing more directly with contemporary political realities than any since the Generation Trilogy. Shakespeare’s text, extensively cut by the pair, was treated as just one of the ingredients in the devising and storytelling of the work, which became ‘a story in a pub that followed the narrative arc of Othello rather than simply setting Othello in a pub’ (Graham and Hoggett 2008). This setting, with its central use of a pool table in the choreography and staging, held echoes of DV8’s Enter Achilles (1995) and National The­ atre of Scotland’s hugely successful Black Watch (2006; see below). In all of these, the pool table, familiar prop of a ‘lads’ night out’, is used by performers as a launchpad for their leaps and catches. Othello’s design, like that for Stockholm, was provided by Laura Hopkins, who had a close involvement in the devising process that has been characteristic of the BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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company’s interaction with designers. The most striking moments were provided by Hopkins’ choice to make the walls, apparently part of a traditional box set, articulated and able to move in response to perform­ ers’ touch. So when Cassio became drunk, they swayed and weaved away from him, and when Othello was at the peak of his emotional arc, they tunnelled backwards, producing a stage effect that mimicked a cinematic dolly zoom. Graham has spoken of the importance of design to Frantic’s work, specifically in relation to Othello: ‘I don’t want our actors to act in front of a set. That means the set is dead. Laura’s set is very much alive, and it comments, and it reacts, and it provokes’ (Gra­ ham in Frantic Assembly 2014). The decade between Hymns (1999) and Othello (2008) was a sig­ nificant period for Frantic with regard to the adoption and evolution of a range of methodologies for supporting writers. The creation of new texts was facilitated by a collaborative, devising-derived, and physically-alert rehearsal room. But it should be remembered that the company’s work also relies on a similarly close and mutually-sustaining set of conversations with designers working inventively with space, lighting and meaning. We will return to the examination of these rela­ tionships in the specific case studies of Chapter 3. AWAY FROM FRANTIC

Frantic’s growing reputation, and its professional connections with Tiffany and Featherstone, saw its artistic directors – both together and individually – taking on more and more movement direction work for other companies. But they were resistant to the idea of being choreog­ raphers for hire, and gave preference to processes in which they could work over periods of time that were by UK theatrical norms lengthy, evolving a movement language in the rehearsal room rather than simply providing moves for the performers to repeat. This is a foundational principle of the approach to which they have come to refer as ‘building blocks’ (see Graham and Hoggett 2014: 16, and Chapter 2). The years from 2003 to 2007 saw them undertaking a particularly large quantity of such work with other companies, alongside Fran­ tic’s own prolific production schedule. Graham and Hoggett provided movement direction together on Villette (2005) at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, and Market Boy (2006) at the National Theatre, London. This latter collaboration was a big step up in the company’s

profile, and they developed strong working relationships with director Rufus Norris and the NT. Hoggett in particular began to build up an extensive body of movement direction work, including two produc­ tions for Paines Plough: The Straits (2003) and Mercury Fur (2005), both directed by Tiffany and commissioned by Featherstone. Featherstone, as the founding artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland, commissioned works involving both Graham and Hoggett separately: Graham’s contribution to a nationwide exploration of the domestic space, Home Inverness, and another Tiffany/Hoggett collaboration, Black Watch (both 2006). Black Watch drew on interviews with former soldiers to create ‘an unauthorised biography of the legendary Scottish regiment’ (National Theatre of Scotland 2006), particularly focusing on its recent con­ troversial deployment in the Iraq War. Originally staged in a disused drill hall and playing to huge audiences as part of the Edinburgh Fes­ tival Fringe, the production launched National Theatre of Scotland’s reputation nationally and internationally, and won numerous awards including a Fringe First and four Olivier awards. It toured repeatedly across the world, notably to the United States, gaining glowing reviews which praised its seamless integration of physicality and music, and its evocative movement sequences (see Brantley 2007). One noteworthy sequence drew on Hoggett’s experiences from On Blindness, where ges­ tural material was created from sign language created by the company. In Black Watch this simple, wordless manual choreography movingly and expressively speaks of the soldiers’ losses as they receive and read let­ ters from loved ones at home. Elsewhere, the movement work depicts both the boisterous playfulness of the men, and the violence of the job they’re being employed to do. Hoggett cites Black Watch as ‘the water­ shed’ (Hoggett in Evans 2019: 40) in his move to work on these much larger scales of production and gain international recognition, and Tif­ fany and Hoggett went on to numerous further successes in the West End and on Broadway, such as Once (2011), Let The Right One In (2013) and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016). The National Theatre connection meant that Graham and Hoggett together contributed movement direction to the internationally suc­ cessful adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2012). Directed by Marianne Elliott and adapted by Simon Stephens, the production ran for nearly five years in the West End and toured around the world. Frantic’s contribution, in line with BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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the work they had evolved for in-house productions, was not merely choreography of particular sequences; rather, Hoggett credits Elliott as being at the forefront of a ‘genuinely […] brand-new type of process […] where you don’t see the joins between the different creative teams’ (Hoggett in Evans 2019). While we might question how ‘new’ this pro­ cess truly is – certainly this blurring of responsibilities had been common in Frantic’s own work through the 1990s and 2000s – the production is noteworthy for its role in revealing such methods to significant numbers of spectators and students: this was a mainstream show with popular appeal, which gained coverage in national press and media, and toured to some of the largest national (and later international) stages. RETURNS TO THE FAMILIAR

The period from 2009 to 2012 involved a number of returns to familiar collaborators for the company. Beautiful Burnout (2010) was co-produced with National Theatre of Scotland, and Graham and Hog­ gett again engaged Bryony Lavery as writer, the third such collaboration in as many years. The genesis of the production came from Graham’s long fascination with boxing, a love-affair tempered by feelings of shame about his admiration of ‘a sport where the object is to inflict tempo­ rary brain damage on the opponent’ (Graham in Evans 2012: 258). The story that resulted derived from these tensions, combined with their realisation that creating a boxing story presents limited options: You immediately hit clichés: all boxers start from the bottom; all trainers are surrogate fathers … So instead we decided to focus on the energy of the gym itself and the role that plays in the world of the people who go there. (Graham in Allfree 2012: 45)

Rather than having a basic narrative or situation as the starting point for the production, central to the generation of this piece was the atmos­ pheric focus provided by the visceral world of boxing training. Here, once again, the ‘aesthetic of sweat’ (Shuttleworth 1994) was paramount. Though Laura Hopkins’ design, centred on a revolving boxing ring and backed by a wall of television screens, was sleeker, and there was more of a through-line provided by the relationships between the boxers and with their family members, the essential dramaturgy of the piece was not dissimilar to Frantic’s earliest productions. In particular, the

movement sequences were arranged into bite-sized three-minute bouts soundtracked by electronic dance music duo Hybrid, whose sound is highly evocative of the late-90s club scene. The rehearsal room methodology was also as demanding and collab­ orative as that in the earliest group-devised Frantic productions. In the run-up to rehearsals, for around six months, Frantic provided funding for their actors to train at boxing gyms, in order to develop the neces­ sary authenticity of posture and gestures to perform convincingly in the physical sequences of the show. Graham and Hoggett also insisted that warm-ups were led by the actors in turn, each bringing in elements of their training to share. Thus they emphasised collaboration, the sharing of skills, and a friendly competitiveness that had been present since the earliest formulation of the Frantic devising process. These now took on particular relevance for this specific production, conducive to and gen­ erative of its aesthetic and atmospheres (see Evans 2012). The design was as communicative as in Othello and Stockholm. It contained a number of coups, such as the rotating boxing ring which, combined with the use of slow-motion, facilitated the impression of time distortions and ‘bullet-time’-like effects borrowed from the filmic world of The Matrix (1999). The raised stage also enabled tricks such as a washing machine that rose up from the ring for a domestic scene. The young boxer Cameron then climbed out of the machine in a moment repeated in several forms over subsequent Frantic shows, such as Lovesong’s (2011) bed from which characters could emerge and into which they disappeared. Hoggett explained the creative ambition for Beautiful Burnout as ‘to create a theatrical experience that is about text, movement, sound and light’ (in Catton 2011), in another acknowledge­ ment of the centrality of design to the company’s work. Lovesong also arose as the result of a reunion with a former writing col­ laborator: Abi Morgan, who had provided the text for Tiny Dynamite ten years previously. Where the earlier production had dealt with the initial moments of young people falling in love, Lovesong was the company’s clearest attempt to date to think beyond their own experience and ages. Four actors presented the same couple at different points in their life: in their twenties, starting out on their life together, and in their seventies, faced with declining health, death and fading memories. The older pair were played by distinguished actors Sam Cox and Siân Phillips. Graham cites a diverse range of initial inspirations for the play, including T.S. Eliot’s poem ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, the music of British BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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band Elbow, the ‘grand gesture’ of early action/comedy films such as Buster Keaton’s and Harold Lloyd’s, and chance comments during a post-show discussion after Stockholm (Graham 2011b: 5–6). All of these came to cohere, even though initially the creative team had only the barest idea of the work they wanted to create together. Graham sug­ gests that this process in particular demonstrated the strength of the model evolved over the 2000s. While playwrights might usually expect to be solely responsible for the construction of ‘a whole universe’, and feel that creative pressure, Graham and Hoggett were there ‘presenting possible universes to her [Morgan]: song and movement and scenarios’ (Graham 2018b). The resulting production was the first Frantic show made available through Digital Theatre+ (2012) – it was released only a couple of months after the end of the tour – and as such it is one of the most readily accessible of Frantic’s works. LETTING OTHERS IN: 2012–PRESENT HOGGETT’S DEPARTURE

In 2012, Hoggett stepped away from Frantic, leaving Graham the sole artistic director and only founder member still involved with the com­ pany on a day-to-day basis. This followed a period in which Hoggett was balancing work for Frantic with his own increasing activity as a freelance choreographer and movement director, particularly in the USA. I suppose that the obvious thing that was staring me in the face the whole time is that Frantic had existed on a very, very pure, beautiful sense of loyalty. And I was not operating with 100% loyalty to a company that I believed thrived on that. (Hoggett 2019)

Difficult though it was, they both state that the separation was ‘not a divorce’ (Gardner 2015). Nor was it a critical blow for a company whose brand identity has always been stronger than any individual personality – indeed, whose methods have been predicated on close collaboration across a team much wider than the ‘core of two’ of Graham and Hoggett. Though the intimate mutual understanding of the founding trio was cru­ cial to the formulation of the company’s output and creative processes, from the outset they have curated and relied upon a much wider ensem­ ble whose influence persists vividly in Frantic’s work today.

Hoggett’s departure was brewing for a while, as he and the company first tried to make possible an arrangement whereby he would work in an official Frantic capacity for six months of the year and as a freelance choreographer for the other six. It became evident to all concerned that this had its own challenges, given the lengthy processes behind the big Broadway musicals on which he had started working (American Idiot 2010; Peter and the Starcatcher 2011–12) and the difficulties of returning at times, in Hoggett’s own words, ‘like a wrecking ball’ (Hoggett 2019) to a company whose workshop and production output needed to con­ tinue year-round. Frantic were extremely busy, with Beautiful Burnout being restaged for a 2012 tour, development beginning for The Believers (2014), and rehearsals ongoing for Curious Incident. Graham and Hog­ gett completed work on that production together but, before they did, they made their last original Frantic show as co-directors. The National Theatre Wales commission Little Dogs (2012) was a return: to Swansea, to work with Taliesin Arts Centre, and to a fragmented, non-narrative structure. It adapted a Dylan Thomas short story in a deconstructive way harking back to Volcano’s style and methodology. It thus acted overall as a valedictory tour of aesthetics and ways of working from the very beginning of Graham and Hoggett’s time together: it was, con­ sciously, ‘a throwback show made in the style of the Generation Tril­ ogy’ (Graham 2018b). FRANTIC AFTER HOGGETT

The realities of Hoggett’s departure inevitably caused a further shift in priorities for the company, and a need to regroup for Graham. He returned to Othello, reworking it for a tour in 2014. And it so happened that the next show in the company’s production plan, The Believers, involved a return to one of the closest and most successful of Frantic’s former collaborations, with Bryony Lavery. The production was based on an idea Graham had been mulling for a while, about faith systems and a clash between fear and belief. Graham also involved regular performer Eddie Kay as Associate Movement Director, and drew a team of trusted Frantic regulars around him. In fact, Graham experienced the making of the first production following Hoggett’s departure as a revelation in terms of the ‘vivid’ presence of these collaborators (Graham 2018b). Though he and Hoggett were always open and welcoming to a range of other creative practitioners throughout the company’s history, he BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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realised that what they must have presented to the outside world had inevitably been closed off in some regards: ‘the inner sanctum’. People would talk to us about the telepathy that existed between me and Steve, and we didn’t really know what that was. […] Even if we weren’t having a telepathic moment, they felt they weren’t privy to what was at the heart of the process. (ibid.)

This is a challenge of the close creative partnership between its co-founding members: even with a practice as deliberately and con­ sciously open as Frantic’s, it requires particular effort to sustain this openness. Reconfiguring his rehearsal room for The Believers, Graham suddenly found a wider range of collaborators much more closely avail­ able to him and freer to shape the process: ‘they were given access to the centre’ (ibid.). What resulted was a heavily design- and lighting-driven production which referred back to the 90-degree perspective shifts of Heavenly and Dirty Wonderland, and the horror aesthetic of Underworld. As Lavery puts it, the show ‘emerges from the darkness of doubt’ (in Bosanquet 2014). But despite resonances with previous works, The Believers set itself apart in its more extreme embrace of stillness and the absence of any ‘dance’. Graham deliberately aimed to challenge the notion of continuity in the company’s work – to redress, again, the bal­ ance of their aesthetic. ‘As tough as it was, it felt refreshing’ (Graham 2018b), and working as a solo director gave him ‘a new confidence’ which was ‘liberating’ (Gardner 2015). The importance of stillness, of moments of balance or tension between inertia and motion, and the impulse to fight gravity and pres­ ent different perspectives through inventive design, all features of the company’s work since the early 2000s, have been particularly empha­ sised in the most recent productions. In interview, Graham has repeat­ edly focused on this stillness in his work, perhaps partly in reaction to the popularity of Curious Incident, which has brought a new awareness of the company to huge numbers of spectators. This popularity may also engender a simplified view of Frantic’s work as that of ‘creating chore­ ography’, and an expectation that the company’s own productions will feature stylistically-similar movement work. Frantic’s latest shows reit­ erate simplicity and restraint as key elements of an onstage movement and design vocabulary, and emphasise the integration of physicality,

design, music and text contributed by a large number of collaborators from the beginning of the process. EVOLVING COLLABORATIONS

Things I Know To Be True (2016) was the result of a co-production with the State Theatre Company of South Australia, with that company’s newly-instated artistic director Geordie Brookman co-directing. Like Rabbit and Lovesong, domestic and familial elements were at the fore. It is a story of four siblings, each of whom is facing up to a particular chal­ lenge in their personal life, and the parents who are trying to support their children. Like Rabbit, it thus presents parent/child relationships in which both parties struggle to understand the other’s perspective, and it shows the mother and father as characters in their own right, with their own relationship to manage and their own strengths and weaknesses; it is reflective of that moment in early adulthood when you first realise not only that your own parents are not all-knowing, but that they might also need their children’s support at times. And, like Lovesong, crucial to the play is an attempt to tell part of the story from the perspective of characters of a generation separated from Graham and his collaborators at the time. In line with the Frantic process, the play emerged in short phases of research and development spaced out over a couple of years starting in 2014, in which ‘we all committed to start from scratch’ (Graham in Digital Theatre+ 2017). The two directors, Graham and Brookman, met for the first sessions with writer Andrew Bovell, designer Geoff Cobham, and six actors, and all they brought into the room was a book of images by American photographer Gregory Crewdson. They ended up talking about their own lives, and the ‘dreams that we’re sold’ which might in reality be starting to fade (ibid.). As the show emerged, Brookman – who had previously assisted Graham and Hog­ gett on Lovesong – experienced the work as feeling ‘more like a 10-way collaboration’ (in Swain 2016) than like co-direction or a collaboration specifically in support of a writer. 2017’s Fatherland evidences a further stage in Graham’s ongoing experimentation with collaborative processes and ways of stimulating – and attributing – theatrical creativity. The playtext and programme list Scott Graham, musician Karl Hyde and playwright Simon Stephens all as co-authors of the piece, with the trio also credited as director, BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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composer and writer, respectively. ‘Authoring’, then, has been clearly delineated as something different from ‘writing’. The seeds of Fatherland were planted in 2015, when Graham had returned to his hometown of Corby in Northamptonshire, with Neil Bettles, a long-standing Frantic practitioner and now Associate Director. Bettles is also from Corby, and together they created a show entitled No Way Back. The production was made with a mixture of professional and community performers of all ages, and Fatherland shared some of the same working methods, as well as its fascination with returning to one’s place of birth after decades away. Fatherland also develops the thread of recent Frantic works exploring aspects of parenthood. It was created through a verbatim theatre-making methodology in which Stephens, Hyde and Graham interviewed a range of people they had known when younger, their own fathers, and other men from their hometowns. They used a questionnaire designed to spark discussion about father/son relationships, and shaped the material into a series of vignettes narrated by ten characters. Tellingly, they made the choice to include them­ selves as characters in the piece, as they found that the visits home made them question their own position in the process, how they had changed in the intervening years, and how their childhood friends would now view them. The production was commissioned for a premiere at the Manchester International Festival, where a cast of local community per­ formers, dubbed the ‘Chorus of Others’, also augmented several move­ ment and choral sequences. The integration of community work into such high-profile commis­ sions is part of the ongoing interchange between Frantic’s main-stage productions and their workshop and training programmes (see also Chapter 2). And while Graham has now been the sole Artistic Director of the company for some time, the central role for Bettles in delivering workshops and co-creating No Way Back is only one indication of the deep integration of a team of collaborators which has coalesced to form the ‘Frantic family’, particularly emerging through training and other associate programmes. For instance, in 2009 the company launched the Ignition programme, which aimed (at that time) to ‘confront the lack of skilled, male, physical performers in the theatre industry’ (Frantic Assembly 2011). The final sharing of work by 2010’s Ignition cohort was devised under the title The Believers, and acted as an exploratory testbed for material that later became the full Frantic production of the same name. Jonnie Riordan, who was a participant in the 2009

process and has continued to contribute to the company’s work since then, refers explicitly to the way that Ignition has come to serve as ‘an R&D platform’ (Riordan 2019) for the evolution of Graham’s own theatre-making. Crucially to the more recent evolution of the company, Ignition has provided a route to main-stage work independent of Frantic’s one remaining founding member. In 2018, Bettles directed a cast of four Ignition graduates in The Unreturning. Though Graham found the process of setting up – and then staying away from – The Unreturn­ ing ‘very weird’, he quickly realised that his presence in the rehearsal room would be problematic for the creative team, accidentally imbu­ ing him with a guru-like status which he has always shunned (Graham 2018b). He walked away from rehearsals, and thus a significant new phase of Frantic’s history was opened up: one in which a professional, nationally-touring, Frantic-branded show involved neither Steven Hog­ gett nor Scott Graham, either on or off the stage. CONCLUSION

During 2019 and 2020 Frantic have been in retrospective mood, cel­ ebrating their 25th anniversary with a glossy publication reproducing memories and imagery from throughout the company’s history in cel­ ebration of their work (Graham 2019). Graham remains at the helm of the company, of course, though The Unreturning might signal a possible future in which another individual or partnership could plausibly take on its artistic directorship. Yet, despite his continuing willingness to open up the company to other creative voices, there are no signs that he is planning any such definitive step away from this work himself. Follow­ ing The Unreturning, Frantic were soon mounting another show, 2019’s I Think We Are Alone, which Graham co-directed with Kathy Burke. He continues the company tradition of challenging expected conventions of theatre-making: in interview with Lyn Gardner, he describes his attempt to assemble a group of designers of various specialisms ‘with­ out a writer and with no script’ (in Gardner 2020), to offer a space to generate theatrical ideas at the very beginning of a process. He observes that this was not a successful experiment: ‘I thought not having a writer would give everyone freedom, but I just created this abyss’ (ibid.). But as Gardner argues, the challenges faced during the attempt are in them­ selves revelatory about the expected hierarchies of the creative process, BIOGRAPHICAL AND ARTISTIC CONTEXT

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and Graham’s willingness to challenge these is bold and refreshing; she draws a parallel with Pina Bausch’s bravery in embracing new ways of working. When the tour of I Think We Are Alone, along with all other theatrical activity, was cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic in spring 2020, Fran­ tic were quick to react, with Graham hosting online workshops and dis­ cussions with a range of collaborators past and present. He continues to share the company’s work in an open and collaborative spirit, even in a time of global social and creative turmoil. And Frantic continues to forge connections and to foster creativity by supporting new theatre-makers. In 2019, Neil Bettles’ own company, ThickSkin, staged How Not To Drown by Nicola McCartney and Dritan Kastrati at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Bettles and Kastrati had originally met when the latter took part in Frantic’s Ignition programme. They became interested in finding theatrical ways of telling Kastrati’s story of fleeing the aftermath of the Kosovan War and seeking refuge in the European Union. It was Gra­ ham who put them in touch with Nicola McCartney – who had written Underworld for Frantic 15 years previously – urging them that she was exactly the right collaborator for the task. According to Jonnie Riordan, another Ignition alumnus and co-choreographer for the resulting pro­ duction, ‘Scott was definitely the catalyst for the whole thing’ (Riordan 2019). It’s an example of the extent to which Graham has now taken on the role that previously Tom Morris, Vicky Featherstone and, right at the start, Paul Davies and Fern Smith of Volcano Theatre had played for the young theatre-makers who had started Frantic in 1994: seeing potential, offering guidance, and making connections.

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K E Y W R I T I NGS , PRINC I P LE S AN D I D E A S ‘ Always Forward, Never Back ’

There is a range of material available for anyone seeking to explore the ideas that underpin the work of Frantic Assembly. Graham and Hoggett have written their own book, The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre (hereafter referred to as The Frantic Book), now in its second edition, which outlines the history of the company and describes the evolution of key exercises and significant productions. The Frantic Book has had a significant impact; as of mid-2019, total sales for both editions num­ bered nearly 18,000 copies, making it one of the best-selling guides to theatre devising. Scott Graham (2019) has also written a book that celebrates the company’s 25th anniversary; it includes many images and recollections, and is structured around the key principles underpinning the company’s work. In addition, the company have made available a number of videos providing insight into their working methods; these can be found online via the Frantic Assembly YouTube page and the National Theatre YouTube page (see Resources). By February 2020, the two National Theatre videos (2015a, 2015b) had, between them, clocked up over 444,000 views, considerably more than any of the other devis­ ing videos available on the same channel. While Frantic’s work has featured only briefly in other books on UK theatre practice (for exam­ ple, Harvie 2005; Heddon and Milling 2006; Tomlin 2015), their own books and online videos have been hugely popular. Since Look Back in Anger, Frantic Assembly have also offered those interested in their work

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the opportunity to experience their approach to performing and devis­ ing directly, through workshops and residencies. This chapter refers to all of these, and to theoretical and analytical works, in order to give a critical overview of Frantic Assembly’s approach to making theatre. THE FRANTIC ASSEMBLY BOOK OF DEVISING THEATRE

The Frantic Book is deliberately presented in an accessible, immediate and informal style. Graham has written about his acute awareness of the need for the book not to ‘define’ the company in any permanent sense: ‘When I was invited to write about the creative process, I was terrified of writing a manifesto as I thought it would be full of ideas that would become redundant’ (Graham and creative team 2020: 37). The book grew out of the resource packs that Graham had created for many of the Frantic shows, and its tone and organisation to some extent reflect this. It is structured in two parts: Part One explores the key practices, processes and ideas that are central to what the company now refers to as the ‘Frantic Method’; Part Two looks at how specific per­ formances and productions were created, describing the journey from warm-up through choreographic exercises to final staging, as well as the use of text and music. The structure of the book is, arguably, as revealing as the content. Instead of a journey through the history of the company, or a ‘how to’ guide to making Frantic-style performances, the book criss-crosses the authors’ experiences, taking the reader in and out of exercises, ideas, performances, productions and stories, in a manner that matches the ebb and flow of the company’s devising and rehearsal process. They acknowledge how, as young performers with little or no background in making theatre, they had to ‘forge [their] own understanding of how to create work’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 3). As a result, they make few claims of originality – exercises, ideas and sections of shows are always set in the context of the events, stories, people, accidents, soundtracks and influences that shaped them. Gra­ ham and Hoggett state from the start of the book that they ‘have never felt beholden to any particular school of thought or theatrical tradition’ (ibid.); they have also been reluctant to theorise what they do or how they do it. They do not deny or resist the associations of their practice with late-twentieth-century dance theatre and physical theatre, but it does not help them in the making of their work to be overly conscious

of the similarities and distinctions between their work and that of oth­ ers. Their key points of reference instead come from the contempo­ rary world around them: films, stories, music videos and other cultural sources (see Chapters 1 and 3 for examples). Within the book, and within the various other resources published by the company, a number of key ideas emerge that are central to, and help to define, Frantic’s work. These ideas can be identified as: col­ laboration, physicality, movement and gender, the process for creating new performances, the value of text and movement, and education and training. The following sections in this chapter are structured around these themes, rather than the looser and more pragmatic and anecdotal structure of The Frantic Book. Discussion within these sections will draw as appropriate on several sources, in addition to The Frantic Book, includ­ ing: educational resource packs, media articles, online resources and personal interviews. It is important to remember that The Frantic Book is intended as a handbook and guide for the reader interested in using Frantic’s processes to devise their own theatre, not as a manifesto for one particular kind of theatre practice, nor as a theoretical discussion of theatre practice. It is one representation of Frantic’s devising process, and it needs to be understood within the context of the overarching ideas underpinning their work and the importance of exploring those ideas through practice and performance. COLLABORATION

Collaboration is a central part of the way that Frantic Assembly works. The Frantic Book itself emerged from a collaborative process, and Gra­ ham and Hoggett describe it as potentially ‘a partner to your creativ­ ity’ (2014: 4), locating it within the ethos that informs all their work. The Frantic Book and YouTube videos all come from a commitment to ‘pass forward’ and share what they have learned, a commitment also evidenced through their Learn and Train activities and the Ignition pro­ grammes. Collaboration is thus a forward-looking idea, impelling the company to explore new partnerships and to open itself up to working with emerging performers and artists. Right from the start, Frantic Assembly has been a company that is about working together, sharing inspiration and being open to input from new collaborators. As Liam Steel, the director for Hymns, puts it, ‘They were openly magpies’ (Steel 2019). As noted in Chapter 1, for K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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a substantial part of the company’s early history the strategic direction was shared between its founders – a kind of shared leadership that was a structural feature of several of the physical theatre companies founded in the 1980s and 1990s. Such long-term collaboration requires high levels of commitment, the security of regular financial support, and a group of people who are open and willing enough to share creative ideas. As with many of the other collaborative theatre companies that emerged at this time, the early experience of touring the country on very low budgets meant that an ‘ethic developed which meant that everyone par­ ticipated’ (Sierz 2017: 6). This created an egalitarian ethos and a strong sense of shared responsibility for the making and touring of the shows, something that is reflected in the acknowledgements given within The Frantic Book for the sources of many of the exercises (for example, the development of Marcia Takedown from an exercise introduced by per­ former Marcia Pook during work on Underworld in 2001). SHARING AND LEARNING

Frantic Assembly have worked extensively to demystify and share their processes and practices, an intention that underpins the publication of The Frantic Book. They have consistently sought to enable others to make use of what they have learned, and to bring into their process other artists whose work they admire. In the beginning, their relative ignorance of professional theatre practice meant that collaboration with more experienced directors, choreographers, musicians and designers helped them to develop as artists. This learning trajectory is outlined in Chapter 1, and its additional benefit was in enabling a rich under­ standing of collaboration as a way of operating in all spheres. This kind of ‘self-apprenticeship’ (see Smith 2013: 59) is an approach to profes­ sional development that is symptomatic of a period that saw a rapid expansion of arts education and the creative industries, access to gen­ erous National Lottery funding for arts organisations, increased access to training through festivals, workshops and residencies, and a growing entrepreneurialism among young companies. The fact that they started from a place of naïve passion and commitment, learnt openly from their own mistakes, and were honest and up-front about this journey, clearly appealed to their young audiences. Frantic, like many of the physical theatre companies of the time, quickly developed what Mermikides and Smart (2010: 147) describe as

a ‘core and pool’ structure, with regular collaborators (actors, writers, choreographers and directors) being drawn together with others from a growing pool of less frequent collaborators in response to the needs of specific projects – something reflected in the way that performers’ and collaborators’ names appear and re-appear throughout The Frantic Book. This level of collaborative interaction created a company ethos that has sustained trust, openness and responsibility throughout each production process, and across the history of the company. The company’s choice of name, Frantic Assembly, itself conjures up a desire to bring people actively and energetically together in creative collaboration. OPENNESS

The openness that informs the company is not simply an openness to the input of other artists. The ideas for Frantic shows come from being open to the social and cultural zeitgeist, to the images, sounds, issues, stories and moods circulating within the cultural environment of their target audience. Of course, openness alone is not enough – there also needs to be an understanding of how to absorb what is around you into the work that is made, and how to present that work to the audience. This open­ ness, therefore, extended into the rapport that they set out to establish between performers, within the production team, and between the per­ formers and the audience. Many of the shows deal with friendship, with the loss of friends and mortality, with relationships (good and bad), with the spaces between people, with the excitements and pleasures of embodiment, sexuality and physicality, and with the struggles of people (especially men) to communicate with each other. These themes create resonances between the way the shows are made, their content, and the fellowship between the performers. Drawing together a range of collaborating artists is part of immersing a production in a contempo­ rary cultural context that is sound-tracked, image-heavy, fragmented and intense. In this sense, the company’s focus on collaboration can be seen as a way of responding to a generational interest in networks and networking, in heightened physicality and a yearning for intimacy, and in the play of complex emotions and identities that weave through all of these domains. Despite the company’s core leadership reducing over time from three people to one, Frantic’s longstanding commitment to openness and collaboration has not wavered. Nonetheless, the final cre­ ative decision-making has perhaps inevitably narrowed over time. The K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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challenges of maintaining such openness, and of balancing its demands against a reduced core of directors, are not insubstantial. Frantic’s response to this has been to attempt to build this openness into the com­ pany’s ethos and its working processes. ENSEMBLE CREATION

Frantic’s approach to physicality also demands an openness within the making space. The use of contact, movement and devising within the creative process is described in detail in The Frantic Book. The degree of personal investment in the work also means that participants have to be ready to open up in a number of important senses. They have to be open to the impulses and images that inform their own movement; they have to be open to the movement proposals of those they are working with; and they have to remain physically open within work that requires a high level of close proximity. All this requires the participant to accept a relatively high degree of vulnerability – there is a requirement for high levels of trust, and for a willingness to engage with and overcome possi­ ble personal inhibitions. Such openness is of course common in a range of physical theatre companies; it is close to the attitude that Lecoq-based practitioners would refer to as disponibilité (see Murray 2018: 65–78), and it resembles the willingness to draw upon personal experience that informs the work of DV8 and Tanztheater Wuppertal. The complexities of working in close and sometimes intimate physical contact with others have been highlighted by the #MeToo movement, but have always been something that Frantic has sought to manage sensitively within its prac­ tice. The role of female and gay company associates as co-leaders and role models for workshops and residencies is clearly an important factor in maintaining openness within gender-diverse groups that are explor­ ing movement and theatre-making. Ex-company members have spoken about the sense of being part of a close group of people who were nour­ ished by that kind of intimacy. This was part of the appeal for audiences as well: ‘I think that’s what we wanted with Frantic – you should want to get on stage with us a bit and be in this gang’ (Hoggett 2019). Openness also relates directly to the collaborative making process. When Tilly Cobham-Hervey (who played Rosie in the Australian pro­ duction of Things I Know To Be True) states that ‘everyone’s personal stories and experience bled into the final production’ (Graham 2017: 38), she is constructing the collaborative process not simply as a set of

techniques for structuring the production, but also as a process built on and enabling the sharing of life experiences. Cait Davis (2019) suggests that this approach grew out of the early experiences of making work: as discussed in Chapter 1, the fluid movement between performing, writing, designing and other aspects of the work meant that no one individual had the last word in the rehearsal room. Given that writer Spencer Hazel was also an active presence in that process, performing in several early shows and helping shape the movement vocabulary and dramaturgy of the work, the experiences of all the company members were able to feed naturally into his final script. The writing/devising process was designed to draw overtly on the individual life experiences of the ensemble. Being part of the process is central to creating collab­ oratively: ‘if people have been picked, they should know that they’ve been chosen to be part of Frantic Assembly […] that it’s not about the individual’ (Hoggett 2019). STARTING POINTS

Openness and collaboration are thus integral to the creation of Frantic’s work. In the resource pack for Fatherland, Graham (2018a) refers to the ‘Monkey Thought Translator’, an idea borrowed from the Sony Pic­ tures animated film Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009), and some­ thing that for him represents ‘a way of getting out to the voices that are hidden for whatever reasons’ (Graham 2018a: 6). This notion chimes with the collaborative approach more generally, which aims at encour­ aging participants to feel that they can bring forward ideas that might not otherwise emerge. For the making of Fatherland, the initial core collaborators (Scott Graham, playwright Simon Stephens and musician Karl Hyde) went to their working-class hometowns (Corby, Southport and Kidderminster) on the lookout for images that might convey how the theme of fatherhood could be rooted in the personal and the every­ day. To achieve this, they had to be open to each other and sensitive to the stories with which they engaged; the themes that Frantic are keen to explore meant that these were often stories that touched on deep senses of connection and/or loss. The Frantic Book evidences how Frantic’s collaborative approach throughout their first decade introduced them to important structural concepts, such as initiating material from simple tasks (what they now refer to as ‘building blocks’, Graham and Hoggett 2014: 15–16), using K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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unison and canon (ibid.: 134–7), and the development of strings of movement material (ibid.: 127). The early input of a number of cho­ reographers and movement specialists (for example, Juan Carrascoso, Steve Kirkham, TC Howard and Liam Steel) enabled them to view mak­ ing theatre as not only a dramaturgical and narrative-orientated process, but also a choreographic and spatial process. Collaboration has enabled the Frantic Method to be an evolving process, something that over the past 25 years of the company’s history has absorbed the influences of the various people involved at each moment, the issues and ideas circulating within the wider world, and the needs of any particular project. The success of The Frantic Book is in this respect problematic, as it inevitably functions to fix the process at one point in time. PHYSICALITY

Chapter 1 has already examined some of the connections between Fran­ tic Assembly and British physical theatre of the past three decades. A more detailed discussion of the complex field of physical theatre can be found in Murray and Keefe’s Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction (2016), and a critical reflection on the points of cross-over between theatre and dance in Kate Elswit’s Theatre & Dance (2018). This sec­ tion starts by examining physical theatre as a historical and cultural phe­ nomenon. Contemporary theory over the past three decades suggests that the body can be an important site for discourses of identity, power and presence. It also proposes that the body and its movement might be able to carry truth and meaning in a way that, according to several postmodern theorists (Roland Barthes, 1915–1980; Jacques Derrida, 1930–2004; Jean-François Lyotard, 1924–1998), words were strug­ gling to do in the late twentieth century. The 1990s was a period during which the body became increasingly recognised as a site of interest for cultural theorists and contemporary philosophers (see, for example, Butler 1993; Shilling 1993; Welton 1998; Brook 1999). Much of this expansion of academic interest was inspired by the ideas of the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–1984), who proposed the body as a site through which cultural history, the operation of social and polit­ ical power, and the potential for more liberal understandings of sexu­ ality could be understood. Frantic’s commitment to a physicality that embraced risk, authenticity, intensity and intimacy thus not only aligned the company to a particular strand of physical theatre activity, but also

participated culturally and creatively in asserting the importance of the body in late-twentieth and early twenty-first-century society – what Tim Etchells refers to as a ‘back to basics of the body’ (1994: 116). Shaped by its origins in new contemporary dance, dance theatre and physical theatre, Frantic’s work combines the flowing, sinuous qual­ ities of Contact Improvisation with the energetic and exhausting physicality of Eurocrash and sports. The boundaries between everyday gestures, movements and dance are never fixed for Frantic; it is from such physicality and gestures, and their inherent fluidity, that the com­ pany creates its movement palette. Andrew Bovell, the writer of Things I Know To Be True (2016), speaks about how ‘I have spent my life yearn­ ing for the thing I ran away from’ (Graham 2017: 8), and this is the kind of emotional dynamic that appeals to Frantic as a starting point. Latent within such a statement are the physical images of pushing and pulling, holding on to and pulling away, avoiding and rushing towards, being held back and launching off, and reaching towards something one is uncertain of achieving (Figure 2.1). ‘Hugs, touches, embraces’ (Gra­ ham 2017: 36) form a long thread through much of Frantic’s work, together with moments of transition – moving into and out of the embrace or the touch (whether desired, achieved, avoided or missed).

Contact Improvisation emerged in the USA as a form of dance prac­ tice during the early 1970s. The dancer Steve Paxton is generally cred­ ited with inventing the form, although others such as Trisha Brown and Anna Halprin had also been experimenting with similar approaches to movement. At its simplest it can be described as a form of physical dia­ logue between two or more people based on touch, the sharing of weight and the flow of movements, and it often establishes a heightened sense of awareness between participants. It was first introduced to the UK through Mary Fulkerson, during her time as a dance tutor at Dartington College between 1973 and 1985.

Graham talks specifically about the moment before the touch, the moment of the touch, and the moment after the touch, and about the need for these all to be different (National Theatre 2015a). This empha­ sises the idea of transition and change, but it also links the movement K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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Figure 2.1 Fatherland by Simon Stephens, Scott Graham and Karl Hyde (2017 Manchester International Festival). Performers: Neil McCaul, Ferdy Roberts and Emun Elliott. Source: Photo by Scott Graham.

process to the themes – such as intimacy, openness and risk – that we are proposing as central to Frantic’s work. Touch, then, is a central part of Frantic’s practices, something that comes before movement, dance and text: ‘Before there is all that, there is touch’ (Graham 2018b). Their work is phenomenologically rich in its assertion that meaning can be created and/or discovered through practice that is replete with sensory experience, emotional resonance and urgency – practice that is tangibly authentic in the physical demands that it makes. Ed Bennett, reflecting on his experiences as an actor in Lovesong, found his most vivid recollections of his fellow actors centred on how it felt to be lifted by them, and to lift them and to touch them. I remember the feel of their skin and the smell as well. I remember it in a much more visceral way than I remember other plays. (in Frantic Assembly 2020d)

Meaning – for both performers and audience members – is forthcom­ ing within their work as a result of the relationship between bodies; the sensations of physical excitement, danger, connection, distance and pleasure; and the significances arising from touch (or its absence). The physicality, focus and energy that infuse Frantic’s work make a poignant counterpoint to the stillness of death, its imminence and its rupture of connection that haunt many of their productions (e.g. Hymns, Heav­ enly, pool (no water), Lovesong, Things I Know To Be True, The Unreturning). The gaps between being and not being, movement and stillness, and the memory of the physical connections with those who are gone, offer rich material for physical exploration, and add complexity to physical work that might otherwise come over as simply focusing on ‘feelgood’ qualities such as youth, health, pleasure and excitement. THE POLITICS OF THE BODY

In Chapter 1 we have outlined the historical and social context within which Frantic’s work has evolved. Physical theatre work in the 1990s was largely devised; as such it represented a resistance to the conven­ tional cultural hierarchies prevalent in the UK, which had historically privileged text. Frantic’s early work playfully appropriated practices from contemporary dance, music videos, popular culture, and films, drawing confidently on the urban cultures of the period (clubbing, K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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house parties, video culture, shared housing and drug cultures); DJ Andy Cleeton spoke about how the first time he saw a Frantic show, he ‘thought it was like being at the most exciting nightclub in the world’ (Gardner 1998a: 15). Frantic’s work at this time was part of a youth cul­ ture of intense sensory experiences, in which physicality was variously experienced as social, energetic, risky, playful, violent, dangerous, explicit and intimate. Liam Steel describes their early work as political in the sense that it was ‘confronting you with things, with expectations of what theatre is’ (2019); their continuing desire to root their work in contemporary culture is part of asserting the importance and rele­ vance of that culture during a period when such forms of activity have been viewed in the media as variously working-class, hedonistic, and of marginal interest. Performing this culture on stage asserts its place, its value, and its relevance. As well as a general sense of rebellion and resistance towards conven­ tional theatre practice, the dance theatre work of this period also drew on the concurrent development of a wide range of critical and cultural theories (Shepherd and Wallis refer to the 1990s as ‘the theory decade’; 2004: 203), including feminism, queer studies, and concepts of gender identity and performativity (see Butler 1990, 1993). Both feminism and queer studies had argued for some time that the personal was politi­ cal, a theme readily picked up by directors such as Lea Anderson and Lloyd Newson: ‘I really don’t see a difference between what is personal and what is political, and therefore I prefer to look at the individual’s actions, responsibilities, and how they reflect on the large political, sociological, psychological arena’ (Newson in Butterworth and Clarke 1998: 117). Movement that was intensely physical, risk-taking and inti­ mate, and that challenged conventions of male and female physicality, was therefore in and of itself political for such companies. The Frantic Book does not seek directly to address the political or cultural implications of the company’s work. The following sections therefore seek not to gloss what the book has to say about gender and politics, but to examine from a critical perspective the ideas that might be understood as running through Frantic’s performance and residency work, setting their work within a wider ideological context. Underpinning Judith Butler’s ideas about gender is the notion of per­ formativity, which proposes that the iteration of forms of behaviour (statements, gestures, modes of being in the world) gives them force and power within the world. The basic idea of performativity is that

gender, for instance, is something that we do (or perform) not some­ thing that we are. That is to say that our culture assigns us a gender and the attendant role at birth and, through repetition, that gendered identity becomes/appears ‘natural’. In this manner we not only absorb knowledge of ‘how a “man” behaves or performs’, but we also, through repeating and enacting such knowledges, sustain them and give them power. Revealing this process is potentially one way of critiquing, chal­ lenging and undermining it. Companies such as DV8 and Frantic Assembly make choreographic use of gestures, movements and actions in ways that can reveal, chal­ lenge and deconstruct their normative function. Touches, embraces, flinches, avoidances, holds and lifts all operate through forms of repe­ tition within everyday life to construct and maintain notions of gender (masculinity or femininity, queer or straight). When these ways of using the body are deployed out of context or in unusual sequences, it is pos­ sible to reveal their role in constructing conventions of social behaviour. Like DV8 and Pina Bausch, Frantic are predominantly interested in everyday life – how we live out the conflicts and struggles of being ourselves and of connecting (or not) with others. Inevitably this means addressing issues of identity, gender and relationships between people; as well as grappling with the ways in which performance work is made. In the publicity material for their production of Zero (1997), they stated that The themes of the work are drawn from everyday life, attitudes and practices. The intention is to bring about an understanding of people’s experience, behav­ iour and environment, in a way that is accessible and stimulating. The work has been described as ideological, political, social, humanist, observational, or just plain funny. It has never been characterised as irrelevant. (Frantic Assembly 1997)

Dance critic Keith Watson wrote in The Guardian about the ways in which certain dance theatre directors were rebelling against a trend in dance and performance to eschew meaning in favour of abstraction, ambiguity and opacity. Watson offers the following quotation from Newson as an example of this interest in a more direct form of meaning: There’s been the creation of the perception of what modern dance is – the ‘myth of the waft’ – and critics must take a large part of the responsibility for K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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that. […] There’s an audience out there that’s desperate to have dance mean something to them, and that doesn’t mean it has to be obvious. But they’re just not being reached. (Newson in Watson 1999)

For Bausch, dance is ‘not a question of athletic performance or complex gymnastics’ (Alain Platel in Murray and Keefe 2016: 91), but rather about ‘indicative signs’ (ibid.). Companies like Frantic explore the spaces where physical athleticism and everyday gestures can overlap and speak with each other in new ways. The political meaning of their work lies therefore in affirming the value of such practice and addressing the powerlessness people can feel in relation to engaging their physicality. Frantic’s work speaks to a generation (commonly referred to as Generation X) for whom political theatre had become a thing of the past. It has, as a result, been less concerned with theatrical and political avant-gardism and more interested in exploring the lives, relationships, desires and issues of their generation. To some extent, this less direct approach to politics was enforced upon small-scale touring companies in the late 1980s and the early 1990s by the growing reluctance of the Arts Council to fund overtly political performance (see Saunders 2015: 74–8). After the 1980s, politics in theatre turned away from traditional political issues (such as economics, party politics, class struggle) and focused instead on the challenges of personal identity. Hoggett, for example, has spoken about how whereas Volcano were ‘looking at the -isms of the world, we were looking at the day-by-day’ (2019). One thing Frantic did take from Volcano was a willingness to deconstruct in order to create. For Volcano, this was about politically deconstructing texts and traditions, ‘to suggest that the tradition – be it political, cultural or sexual – is not so smooth, so seamless’ (Davies 1997: 165). For Frantic, it was instead about recognis­ ing the way that stories and gestures could be deconstructed in order to reveal, on a more personal level, how different ways of being in the world might intersect, disrupt and pull at each other.

Generation X is generally understood as the generation of peo­ ple coming after the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) and before the Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996). This is a

generation that is often associated with a number of socio-cultural trends, such as the rise of the music video, the growth of entrepreneur­ ial tendencies, a certain pragmatism and a scepticism about received wisdom, and the growing importance of visual communication (videos, imagery, films). Popular adoption of the term is often credited to the impact of the novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland (1991).

Ultimately, Frantic have never wanted to be confined by a set of overly specific definitions or expectations of physical theatre. The accessibility of the work has always been an important priority for Frantic, and has helped drive interest in their performances and their processes, particularly amongst young people. Frantic’s process of making accessible the ways in which movement, dance, physicality and the body can express complex meanings relevant to their con­ stituency’s experience has had its own impact, enabling young people taking part in residencies and workshops in schools, colleges, univer­ sities and other settings to find their own creative voices in ways that engage them positively with movement and physicality. Frantic’s deci­ sion not to make theatre that is overtly political is, then, by no means a rejection of politics overall, or of meaning within theatre. Their work has, for most of the history of the company, been intentionally rooted in the experience of ordinary people – either within certain social contexts (for example, Klub and Beautiful Burnout) or within the context of particular personal relationships (for example, Stockholm, Lovesong and Fatherland). Their productions avoid overt political pos­ tures; instead, stories, voices, texts, gestures, movements and their human impacts are interwoven and choreographed. This is a way of working that enables the company to open up for the audience the intersections between place, gender, class, relationships and identity, without dogma. The meaning of movement within Frantic’s work is fragmented and contingent, but not accidental. Movements are gen­ erated within the process, and then examined for the ways in which sequences might be structured in order to suggest different potential meanings; they are not created with the intention of communicating some predefined meaning. The director functions somewhat like a music conductor or a film director: directing the audience’s attention, K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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pulling different moments in and out of focus. On a number of occa­ sions Graham has used the analogy of the edit or shot selection when talking about directing for theatre: A rule of thumb used in film is that a shot must change by 30% from the preced­ ing shot if it is to be seen to be effective and keep the viewer interested. We feel this is a very good rule to observe in theatre too. (Graham 2005: 13)

Meaning-making is thus available as an ongoing process of transference between stage and audience, steered but not controlled by the com­ pany, and echoing processes from elsewhere in contemporary culture. Movement has a key role in inspiring an active audience: ‘their minds are rushing, creating connections and seeing beyond the veneer of a situation’ (Graham and creative team 2020: 37). THE FRANTIC BODY

All of the influences explored above indicate that the Frantic body is a body that shares certain qualities with the bodies of DV8, the Featherstonehaughs/Cholmondleys, Volcano, and Pina Bausch’s Tanz­ theater Wuppertal: for example, authenticity, commitment and inten­ sity of effort. However, it also shares qualities with many of the bodies available within music videos, contemporary dance and clubbing, such as a fascination with touch, connection, presence and the pleasure of fully engaged movement. It is, in a number of ways, different from the performing bodies descended from other traditions. The Lecoq-trained body, for example, is a body that engages with the exploration of ele­ ments, colours, objects and masks. Lecoq stresses the connectedness of the body with the natural world around it through concepts of play, complicité and disponibilité, and through exploration of different dramatic territories (see Murray 2018). The Frantic body instead exists in a world of physical inter-relations with other bodies, struggling between isola­ tion and intimacy, touch and distance, uncertainty and commitment, stability and fluidity. Meaning, within and around the Frantic body, is often multi-layered, reflecting the emotional complexities to which the company is drawn as starting points for their shows. The Frantic body is seeking more than the abstraction of its movements in space; as a theat­ rical body, it seeks to play with the everyday and with the construction

of character, narrative and text. The Frantic body employs the drama­ turgy of dance within the context of collaborative theatre-making, using movement to enrich and deepen the layers of emotional depth within a scene. Graham states that: While rehearsal processes and workshop tasks are designed to strip the respon­ sibility for meaning away from the performers this does not suggest the mean­ ing of a moment in performance is wholly deferred to the audience. The rehearsal was designed to show how astute an active audience can be (and often how diverse in their understanding of an event). In performance, the pre­ cise playing of the moment comes from the director and performers knowing how much you have to do to invite the audience to the desired interpretation. (Graham 2020a)

If the dancing body is conventionally a body that exhibits virtuosic con­ trol, balance and technique, the theatrical body a body that conceals itself within ‘character’ and supports the delivery of text, and the performance body a body that confronts its own materiality, limitations, abjectness and failures, then the Frantic body can be positioned somewhere in a meeting point between all of these. It is a body that collapses the space between abstract and everyday movement, that moves from excess to stillness, that slips between choreography and improvisation, that moves between integrating with text and challenging it, and that elides easy distinctions between acting, performing and dancing. Though not directly referenced by Josephine Machon, Frantic’s work seems to sit within what she refers to as ‘(syn)aesthetics’ – an approach to contem­ porary performance that ‘explodes established forms and concepts’, ‘shifts between performance disciplines’, and dissolves distinctions between ‘the sensual and intellectual, the somatic […] and the seman­ tic’ (2009: 4). Although there is clearly a recognisable style to Frantic’s productions, it is a style that, though consistent, is never fixed – there is constant flow between the everyday and the choreographed. This is an effect that functions to highlight certain moments, to engage the kinaesthetic senses of the audience, and to draw audiences into the process of meaning-making. Frantic’s movement palette thus establishes a semi­ otic system, a vocabulary of touch, embraces, lifts, gestures, moves, contemporary dance forms and abstract physical expression; but at the same time, it distracts us into a form of physical reverie through its use of risk, touch, excitement and energy – a reverie that reminds us of K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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the possibilities of our own bodies and of our embodied presence in the world. Additionally, although the Frantic body started as a young body, over the years it has become a body that can also be mature or old and still retain the same sensuousness, pleasure and intensity (see for exam­ ple the older couple in Lovesong). MOVEMENT AND PLEASURE

For the performer, Frantic’s physical theatre means that the whole self is engaged: it ‘constantly feels like you’re engaging your brain and your whole body in something’ (Hollands 2019). Whereas devising can, when poorly managed, sometimes seem to mean endless discussion, argument and discord, Frantic’s approach ensures that a sustained sense of achievement is possible. Jonnie Riordan (2019), speaking about his experience on the Ignition programme, notes how when you’re in the middle [of the process], it just feels like magic. You go ‘How did that happen? How did we get from there to there?’ And you don’t see the formula or the method at all. […] It’s so quick you can’t see what’s happening.

Steven Hoggett recalls, ‘I don’t ever remember sitting down. I genu­ inely never remember sitting down, ever’ (2019); standing meant that there was always the potential for movement and that talking would typically come after working and not before. Collaborative making is based on tasks and activities that mean that performers always know what they have to focus on, and are directly engaged in creative activ­ ity. This mix of doing, moving and making brings a particular kind of pleasure for the performer, linked to the biophysical effects of intense activity as well as to a general sense of achievement. For Hoggett, this also underpins the emotional impact of physical theatre work: A lot of the work is ballistic, dynamic, acrobatic and sometimes gymnastic; and I think people are always quite surprised that that’s emotional. It’s incredibly emotional, to flip and suddenly land on your feet by way of somebody else’s arm being in a certain place. When you land on your feet, sometimes the look on people’s faces is something close to tearful, and more than that euphoric… always euphoric. […] It’s that thing where your body moves very quickly and with a control you didn’t think you possessed, with energy you thought you’d

left behind years ago. It’s not just exhilarating, I think people don’t quite under­ stand how emotional that stuff gets. (ibid.)

Hoggett sees ‘Quad’ (see Graham and Hoggett 2014: 110–15) as an excellent example of how Frantic’s exercises can transform the mood of a group and confirm the emotional content and affects of movement: Everybody starts smiling and laughing […] Nobody quite understands why it makes you feel like you do, and when you’re in the middle of it you just feel very happy – and I don’t question that, I never have done, I never will. It just ends up making the room feel really buoyant. (Hoggett 2019)

He relates the effect of ‘Quad’ to work on rebound therapy, which he came across on a project with Oily Cart Theatre Company, and which uses trampoline exercise to alleviate certain conditions and disabilities. There is something about the exhilaration of the bouncing movement that brings pleasure and releases physical and emotional tension: ‘The emotional register of being energetic carries with it a lot of weight’ (ibid.). MOVEMENT AND GENDER

The pleasure afforded by performing confident, engaged, physically expressive movement is a quality that inevitably raises questions of access to the agency necessary to achieve it. Feminist academics such as Susan Leigh Foster and Iris Marion Young have unearthed for us the extent to which movement, in general cultural terms, ‘was never accorded agency’ (Foster 2009: 54–5). Historically, movement was conceived of as only externalising a person’s inner thoughts or feelings; in this sense, it represented personal psychology and not social agency. Popular misconceptions of Stanislavskian acting theory, in particular his early work on emotion memory, have tended to reinforce the notion that movement is simply the external representation of the mind’s inner workings. Movement and the body were traditionally aligned with ‘the unconscious, the libidinal, or the emotional’ (ibid.: 55), rather than the conscious and cognitive. Frantic’s work draws on approaches that do K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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not deny or reject the association of movement with the unconscious, libidinal or emotional, but that bring them to the forefront and assert their value and importance. Their work positions movement as some­ thing that projects intention and that aims to create positive effects within space. Iris Marion Young’s 1980 article, ‘Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenom­ enology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and Spatiality’, echo­ ing Butler’s work on the performance of gender, proposes consideration of the feminine ‘as a set of structures and conditions that delimit the typical situation of being a woman in a particular society’ (Young 1990: 141). She suggests the importance of examining movement patterns in order to best understand the structures and conditions that define the feminine (Foster 2009: 52). Rather than accepting women’s physicality as inhibited and uncoordinated, and athletic femininity as exceptional or abnormal, Young sought to examine what forces had constructed the effects she wished to challenge: ‘lack of forthrightness in women’s gait and stride’, ‘a smallness in extending towards the limits of their reach’, ‘an inhibited intentionality, exemplified in a characteristic failure to commit the whole body to a particular task’ and ‘a discontinuous unity in which the feminine subject is unable to coordinate motions from dif­ ferent parts of the body towards a single intended action’ (ibid.: 53). Young cites Merleau-Ponty – it is ‘the body in its orientation toward and action upon and within its surroundings that constitutes the initial meaning-giving act’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 147). She proposes that the ability to engage actively, purposefully and with physical efficiency with one’s surroundings is an important aspect of being empowered to make meaning with one’s physical presence. Dance academic Susan Leigh Foster suggests that for Young this means that too often ‘women are not given access to an unambiguously purposeful sense of themselves in the world’ (2009: 53), and that as a result, women ‘experience them­ selves as embedded within a system of spatial coordinates that does not originate in their own intentionality’ (ibid.). Whilst Young’s ideas need to be seen as hypothetical and contingent – offering particular insights within particular contexts rather than proposing universal truths – they are useful here to help us see how Frantic’s work operates in relation to female performers. As Foster also argues, it is not only fully engaged movement and gesture that can create agency; restrained movement can also be ‘full of tension and drama, as the body seems to proclaim simultaneously, “I will” and “I won’t”’ (ibid.: 57). This resonates with

Graham’s interest in what he refers to as the universes of the touch (see earlier, and 2014: 147–8). Purpose and agency are very important in Frantic’s work. Their movement practice is distinct from some postmodern dance aesthetics in which dance and movement can appear not to ‘originate in the body’s interiority, but instead get placed on the body’s surface’ (Foster 2009: 58), and is also different from the approach of modern mime where the movement and meaning are (supposedly) closely connected. Frantic’s physicality seems to want to extend the body and to develop its reach, its intimacy, its pleasure. As noted in respect of their production of Beautiful Burnout: The dancer, the physical theatre performer, and the athlete offer us experience of a body that continually strives to overcome its conventional limits. As Steven Connor (2011, p. 16) states, ‘the body is both what constrains us [ . . . ] and also what seems to offer us the chance of overcoming or going beyond those conditions’. (Evans 2012: 257)

In their early work, Frantic proposed a kind of fluid gendered physicality – men dancing and women lifting, a mix of hardness and softness. To bor­ row from Burt (2009), the Frantic body is masculine but not masculine, and feminine but not feminine. As we have already seen, physical performance is well suited to inves­ tigating how bodies can ‘perform’ codes of movement that are involved in constructing gender identities. Frantic’s use of everyday gestures and movements within their choreography means that the physical rhet­ orics of gender, the ways in which gender is iteratively constructed through patterns of movement (see Butler 1990, 1993), can be either challenged or accidentally replicated. Frantic’s work challenges the performer and the spectator in a number of ways. It requires them to consider the significance of women performing with energy, commit­ ment and physicality, and doing so without detachment, irony or dis­ tance (see for example Vicki Manderson’s performance as Dina Massie in Beautiful Burnout, in particular Scene 20; Lavery 2010: 64–9). It asks them to consider whether Frantic’s energetic physicality can denaturalise the matter-of-factness of everyday body use on stage, throwing con­ ventional assumptions about gendered movement into sharper relief. Overall, it demands greater attention to physical energy, intimacy, touch, closeness, pleasure and presence; asking what such risk-taking, K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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virtuosity and commitment can signify in relation to our experiences of gender and embodiment. Frantic are sometimes perceived as a ‘masculine’ company, per­ haps because of the visibly central role of Graham and Hoggett dur­ ing the first 18 years, or because of the emphasis on the committed physicality within their work. In reality, women have played an impor­ tant role in the history of the company – for example, Vicki Middleton as co-founder and Executive Producer (1994–2004); Cait Davis and Georgina Lamb (among several others) as performers; Abi Morgan and Bryony Lavery as writers; and Christine Devaney (Flesh) and TC How­ ard (Sell Out) as choreographers. The challenge from the start for Fran­ tic Assembly has been finding performers who could bring the kind of energised vulnerability and muscular softness that was suited to the way they worked and the productions that they wanted to make. Cait Davis (2019) suggests that it wasn’t until Georgina Lamb joined the company that they really found someone who had all the physical skills that suited what they wanted to do. Nonetheless, despite such limitations – and perhaps in part because of them, the company developed a confidence in pushing their physical limits: ‘It never occurred to me that I couldn’t do it’ (ibid.). Women in Frantic Assembly productions and workshops have always been given the space to claim and assert agency, energy and physicality; there are examples for this throughout their work, and as Hoggett states, ‘[Frantic] were notable because we were a physical theatre company with strong women’ (2019). If the fit, energised and present body is perceived as synonymous only with the male body, then women are effectively denied the possibility of owning these qualities for their own bodies. From the start, women in Frantic Assembly have (re)claimed these physical spaces and resisted the oppression implicit in positioning feminine movement as lacking in energy, risk and agency. Graham and Hoggett have been open to every challenge that that has brought. Hoggett recalls that: it was often Cait [Davis], and at times Korina [Biggs], who were notable for being girls behaving with vigour and adrenaline and ballistic energy in a phys­ ical theatre show. I think women were still perceived as the people who maybe weren’t as up for that. Certainly, Scott and I were matched every step of the way physically by Cait and Korina and the other women. (ibid.)

Georgina Lamb is quite clear that the kind of movement work that Fran­ tic Assembly developed was exactly what she wanted to be part of: I was already working in a similar way before I met the boys [Graham and Hog­ gett], which is why I think I loved working with them so much. Because I was like, ‘I’ve found my tribe. This is how I want to work’. (Lamb 2019)

She is quite clear that because of the ways that Graham and Hoggett ran the rehearsal and devising space, she ‘never felt that it was particularly overtly masculine, as an environment to be in, at all […] I always felt very safe in that space, to be open’ (ibid.). While this level of physicality is clearly not something that appeals to all women (or all individuals of whatever gender), it does provide a safe and supportive space for women to assume a physicality that they may feel is denied them else­ where in the theatre industry. The physical intensity of some of Fran­ tic’s shows has also tended to dominate public and critical perception of their work, obscuring the fact that they have increasingly also focused on tenderness, touch, embraces and the ‘softer’ elements of movement by both female and male performers within their shows. The challenge therefore comes in creating movement processes that operate appropriately for both male and female participants, par­ ticularly given the physicality of the work. Elaine Aston (1995: 98–9) points out that workshop practice does not always take notice of the nature of women’s bodies and physiology, and can too easily assume a masculine physicality. Aston identifies how trust exercises and intensive movement workshops may not make allowance for sensitivities over weight and body shape, or over the possibility of inappropriate intimate contact, for example. This highlights the potential dangers of assuming a physical neutrality on to which ‘gender as a set of codes could be projected’ (Foster 2009: 60); unless rigorously interrogated, that neu­ trality is too often based on masculine norms and constructed around what men can do. The manner in which Frantic combine athleticism and dance, tenderness and risk, stillness and movement, is part of their approach to finding a mid-point, a place where gendered movement is less stable and fixed, and where performers are empowered and ena­ bled to challenge their own limitations. The care that they take in estab­ lishing a supportive environment for all participants in their work is K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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essential in ensuring that physical work never becomes exploitative or abusive in any way. TOUCH AND GESTURE

As we have seen, there is a dramaturgy of the body within Frantic’s work, and this is implicit in the work described in The Frantic Book and the other sources. Each aspect of physical interaction is carefully con­ sidered, developed and structured, not simply around its semiotic or cultural significance but also around its sensory depth and quality. In the education pack for the 2005 revival of Hymns, Graham notes how the scene entitled ‘Lullaby’ was devised to work as a series of moves towards and away from – playing with the imminence of touch, and also with the young men’s fear of contact and desire for connection. This is a dynamic that Graham acknowledges as ‘a particularly male dilemma’ (2005: 10). In the scene ‘Caterpillars’, Liam Steel asked the actors to generate movement material that was ‘based on trying to grab or cap­ ture something that always remained out of reach’ (ibid.: 11), indicat­ ing how the movement could be driven by the underlying tensions that ran beneath the male psyches on display. For Graham, the need to con­ nect runs through much of Frantic’s work: moments where meaning is put across, but it’s not put across through words necessarily, which creates my interest in physicality and how we betray ourselves. How our need to connect isn’t about connecting, it’s about our need to connect. So, it’s about the action that hasn’t happened yet. That’s a big masculine issue I suppose. (Graham 2018b)

Frantic’s movement work offers a challenge to the ways in which working-class male physicality might conventionally be understood and expressed. It has a strong visual and physical style, but what it also offers, through exploring touch, connection and closeness (and their absences), is a way for working-class males to find out what is available for them in dance, theatre and movement, and to open up emotionally and physically through the creative process. In this way, it creates a social and creative ‘space’ for those who might usually feel excluded. Frantic’s Ignition programme was specifically designed to address such needs, and will be examined in more detail later in this chapter. The use

of the Frantic exercises that encourage close contact and touch – such as Round/By/Through (see Graham and Hoggett 2014: 125–8) – are part of this agenda and provide a focus through which male participants can explore touch and closeness whilst learning to accept and work with any feelings of vulnerability, self-consciousness or awkwardness (see Chap­ ter 4 for some other examples). Post Covid-19, touch, connection, closeness and their absences will of course have additional resonances and meanings for everyone. Frantic Assembly’s work may offer elo­ quent ways of exploring the new significances of these types of human interaction. MOVEMENT AND WRITING: DEVELOPING THE IDEAS FROM IDEA TO STAGE – THE PROCESS AND PRINCIPLES

The process for making a Frantic Assembly show is described in detail in The Frantic Book. Frantic productions can have as much as a two-year development period – the gestation of ideas can take even longer. The process usually starts with an initial discussion about an idea and/or a collaboration. At this stage it is often about ‘just keeping eyes and ears open and truly trusting that the spark might appear at any time from any source’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 14). Once the decision to progress the idea has been taken, the next decision will often be to engage the writer and some of the other key creatives, and to spark their inter­ est in working collaboratively on this specific idea. Aleks Sierz (2017) describes how the process will typically include two periods of research and development (one or two weeks over the course of a couple of months), during which the characters and their story arc are discussed and workshopped. The first stage is typically a two-week period with selected performers, during which the writer is not writing but just observing. At this stage, other members of the creative team (set, sound and lighting designers) are also brought in, and the director(s) try to ensure that each person’s role is not passive or reactive. The process ‘can be physically led, or it could be about developing story and text’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 15) – the decision is led by the needs of the theme as well as the particular interests of the directors and writer K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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at that time. The important thing is that everyone responds openly to the possibilities that emerge. See Chapter 3 for examples of how this worked in relation to two specific productions. After these first stages, the writing begins. The writer goes away, perhaps for as long as six to twelve months, to produce a first draft of the script. This may also be followed by a period of dramaturgy, in which the director(s) and playwright edit and refine the script. This draft is then brought back for a second period of research and devel­ opment, during which the focus changes to exploring the script as a way into the themes and ideas, rather than the other way around. Once this phase is completed the writer will, after discussion with the com­ pany, go away to prepare the next draft – a draft ready for the rehearsal process. This will also prompt the casting process, which may or may not include those previously involved in the research and development phase. Once cast, there will be a readthrough with the creative team, and then rehearsals commence. For the final four to five weeks the com­ pany rehearse the script, playing with all the elements in order to cre­ ate the performance for the opening night. Even at the rehearsal stage, work will often start with movement and physical tasks. The reason I do this and deliberately encourage the performers not to think about scenes is that they can now explore movement without thinking about what might be right or wrong. This is merely about working out what the team is capable of and what movement language might be right for the show. (Graham and creative team 2020: 13)

This is a process that gives flesh to the principles of collaboration that have been outlined above. Ideas emerge through discussion and improv­ isation, with everybody able to contribute creatively in exploring how material might be generated. This can continue throughout the process; Graham recalls one of the best scenes in Lovesong coming from discus­ sions with the writer during the last week of rehearsals. For him this means that, ‘a play’s never finished until it’s finished, but also in that collaborative environment someone can suggest something. In terms of inspiration, it can very clearly come from anywhere’ (Graham 2018b). In addition to the processes described above, there are a number of techniques described in The Frantic Book, and also identified by theatre critic Aleks Sierz in his ‘Introduction to Frantic Assembly’ for Digital Theatre+ (2017), that appear to have been central to the development

of Frantic’s work in the past, and that, to varying degrees, can still be identified as part of the way that Frantic make, share and present work.  The pre-show

This is an opportunity to create atmosphere and expectation, and through lighting, projection and music to impose a ‘Frantic feel’ on the venue: ‘the claiming of the space’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 17). The Frantic pre-show creates the impression that the show has in some sense already started when you walk into the audi­ torium. The use of a soundtrack also creates an atmosphere that is social, physically engaging, and appealing for the audience.  Names of characters

In the early shows the performers often used their own names. This created a different kind of emotional energy for the performers: ‘An immense power was unleashed in using their own names. It felt honest, in the moment and full of emotional depth’ (Sierz 2017: 4). It helped to create a sense of immediacy, intimacy and authen­ ticity. The later use of devising techniques within the rehearsal of scripted productions, where actors’ names might also be similar to those of the characters, meant that those actors were still able to develop a particular sense of ‘ownership’ of the characters and their representation.  Use of video in rehearsal

Sierz suggests this started during work on Heavenly. Videoing ena­ bled the performers devising that production (Graham, Hoggett and Steel) to re-watch sequences that they were performing in. They soon found that the best bits on the video were often acciden­ tal, things that had emerged unnoticed in the rehearsal or devising process. As Sierz also points out, in later productions videoing ena­ bled ‘the directors to show, rather than tell, the performers what was working in rehearsal’ (ibid.).  Use of sound and music

Graham and Hoggett have spoken about the influence of the DJ Andy Cleeton on the structuring of their performance material, how they adapted Cleeton’s approach to the tempo of his set to K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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create peaks and troughs of energy, sound and narrative drive within their productions (see Smith 2013: 82–3). They have often made use of contemporary dance music, and they have collabo­ rated with bands such as Lamb and Underworld. For Frantic, music was always something that could go straight to the essence of a show and its dynamics. In the early years, Hoggett was the one who led on soundtracking for shows and workshops. The central role of music has been a continuing thread through Frantic’s work, although responsibility has become increasingly collaborative and involves dedicated sound designers. Overall, Frantic’s collaborative process and their willingness to draw inspiration from a multitude of contemporary reference points mean that they have always felt able to explore a range of structural and com­ positional possibilities, and to eschew any comfortable and/or con­ ventional categories. This was a position that they maintained despite their work being sometimes misunderstood by critics who struggled to understand what it was they were watching (for example, Peepshow, 2002 – which was billed as a musical but also drew on performance art and installation work – met with a mixed critical reception as it didn’t comfortably fit any established category). As outlined in Chapter 1, the company experimented eclectically with form, especially on Peepshow and Dirty Wonderland, both of which reflected Graham and Hoggett’s interest at that time in contemporary performance art. These shows very consciously drew on the aesthetics of dance events, contemporary performance art practice, music videos and films. Their feel and impact were intended to unsettle traditional expectations, creating associations with other kinds of ‘night out’. BUILDING BLOCKS

The notion of building blocks is central to the way that Frantic work: ‘all of our devising is broken down into tasks’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 15). In the early productions, programme notes would include a list of scenes often named by the exercise, experience, theme or music track that had been central to the generation of the relevant building blocks and strings of material. Working with building blocks is about using small tasks to develop and accumulate choreographic material. Key benefits are:

• • •

It is a robust and inclusive process; performers are involved in cre­ ating and taking ownership of sections that can then be developed, expanded, refined or discarded. It allows for plenty of creative input, without the pressure of creat­ ing the whole show. The directors can put together a wide range of rich material to work with. The performers feel a personal connection to the work that is being created: ‘we never teach steps […] the moves come from what the performers find they are capable of.’ (ibid.: 16)

Scott Graham talks about ‘tak[ing] a moment back to its simplest truth and build[ing] from there’, and then using this as a process through which participants ‘are empowered to find and create complex work’ (Graham 2020b). Building block tasks often require performers to cre­ ate material within a set of restrictions, such as maintaining or avoiding contact; expanding or minimising space; interrupting or completing movements; taking or rejecting weight; sequencing gestures, move­ ments or actions to simple counts; and sequencing movement alongside text. The aim of the restrictions is to liberate the performers from the anxiety caused by endless choice, but they also help place the moment in relation to simple physical metaphors for life’s experiences – wanting to be touched, missing someone, rejecting or avoiding someone, not wanting to let go. Work created by one set of performers might also be shared with others, helping to bring new perspectives and open out new possibilities. This process is in essence very simple – participants are often surprised at how quickly and easily material can be produced. Sarah Sigal (2017) relates Frantic’s task-based approach to the compositional processes that emerged within dance in the mid- to late-twentieth century, for example in the Contact Improvisation work of Steve Paxton and the dance-making processes of Pina Bausch. Build­ ing blocks work can be situated in this way, and, like some postmod­ ern choreography, it can also link with the notion of performativity discussed earlier. Drawn to the everyday gesture as a reference point, Frantic’s process encourages performers to choreograph and construct sequences from movements that they know, that are familiar and res­ onant for them. Of course, improvisation is involved, but the process K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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is close to that described by Pina Bausch when she talks about how, ‘Usually I ask a question and [the performers] think about it, and when they are ready, then they show it’ (Bausch in Bowen 2013: 100). It is a process that generates a wealth of material, drawing on multiple life experiences, which can be selected and reworked as needed. As with Bausch’s approach, the performers themselves focus primarily on the task set, and are given only limited information about its potential pur­ pose. Frantic Assembly practitioner Richard James-Neal recalls how, during the work to develop the production of Othello (2008), Graham and Hoggett deliberately kept things from the company, ‘not telling us all the information about exactly what it was we were making, so that we kept our creative choices open’ (Frantic Assembly 2020e), and how exciting he found that as an actor. The way that the company integrates questionnaires, anecdotes and storytelling into the building blocks devising process enables and sup­ ports connections with real-life experiences, production themes and the cultural zeitgeist (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 16). The frequent use of music as a background to this process relaxes the performers whilst also acclimatising them to the idea that music may underpin action in the eventual production. Music helps to encourage drama­ turgical exploration of mood, theme, rhythm and dynamics, adding further layers to the generation of meaning through the movement strings created. A process that is structured through building blocks thus allows meaning-making to be deferred until a number of options have been explored, and facilitates this exploratory process. Mark Ravenhill recalls a conversation with Hoggett during the rehearsals for pool (no water) that speaks to this deferral process: ‘A few years ago we’d have wanted everything to be fixed by now,’ Steve tells me. ‘But, as you work more, you learn you can keep rehearsing until you open.’ He cites the experience of working on the National Theatre’s summer hit Market Boy, for which Frantic Assembly provided the movement, seeing the way direc­ tor Rufus [Norris] pulled together a show out of ‘creative chaos’. (Ravenhill 2006)

Maintaining flexibility and openness throughout the devising and rehears­ ing process has always been an important element of how the company

works, and the terminology of ‘building blocks’ has come to capture this approach. THE VALUE OF TEXT AND MOVEMENT

Frantic have striven over the years to ensure that physicality is never an ‘add-on’ to text, nor vice versa; the relationship between physical­ ity and text needs to be organic, subtle, provocative and intriguing; and, as argued in Chapter 1, is repeatedly renegotiated by the company. As early as 1998, Guardian critic Lyn Gardner recognised that what set Frantic apart from other high-energy companies was that, for them, ‘the text is as important as the visuals and soundtrack’ (1998a: 14). Physicality was also used tactically in rehearsals in order to undermine the actor’s desire to focus on voice and text, and to make them pay atten­ tion to what is happening with their bodies. Early in The Frantic Book, Graham and Hoggett make it clear that text and writing have nearly always been an important part of the process of making a Frantic show. From the start, they have expected that writers will work as part of the broader team of creatively empowered, multi-disciplinary collabo­ rators, in an open and flexible approach to theatre-making. The richness of this approach enables multiple complex meanings to be communi­ cated through a combination of text, music, movement and design. Movement has a role of its own in creating and conveying mean­ ing, as well as character, mood, relationships and tensions; however, it would be inaccurate to conceive of movement as doing so only as a subsidiary form of language. Physical theatre practice since the early 1980s has proposed that the spoken word is not the only, or even the dominant, channel for meaning-making, and that movement-based per­ formance has a logic, coherence and communicative power of its own. Phenomenological approaches to meaning-making, and developments in cognitive science (see Kemp 2012), suggest that movement can have an important role in creating meaningful theatre. The challenge for the writer and the director/choreographer is to ensure that text and movement don’t simply duplicate meanings. What is important is that the director(s) maintain dramaturgical oversight over the process as a whole, and over all the collaborations that are taking place within the production (writing, design, sound, lighting, projection, direction, performance and choreography). By maintaining a relationship with K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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writers that values text as just one collaborative part of the whole thea­ tre experience, Frantic have enabled subtext to become something that also emerges through movement and design and has a powerful spatial dimension. The audience have two stories in the scene; they ‘might hear something but the entire physicality might contradict that’ (Steel 2019). Collaboration with writers and performers also raises issues of own­ ership, as well as questions about where and how value resides and is recognised. It has always been very clear who has had responsibility for writing the script in a Frantic show, and they are clearly credited as such. The current legal and contractual structures of the theatre indus­ try, however, mean that although the words in the script are clearly copyrighted, the movements used onstage are generally not. The ‘ownership’ and value of movement has always been more slippery, reflecting the hegemonic status of text over movement and the basis of copyright law in traditional print publication (see David and Challis 2008).

The copyright of movement is a complex legal area. Not just any movement can be copyrighted – it has to be recorded in some form first. Then there are additional challenges in identifying ownership (who cre­ ated the movement – the performers, the choreographer or movement director, or both?). Finally, it can be hard to define originality within the field of movement (and consequently what copying might mean), what constitutes a suitably substantial movement sequence sufficient to be copyrighted, and what degree of expertise might be required to perform it. In musical theatre, for instance, it is easy to see how the lyrics and music can be copyright protected. The choreography is more complex – how many elements of the original choreography might need to be pres­ ent before copying might be deemed to have taken place? A change in choreography is rarely seen as a profound change in the way that a change of lyrics would be perceived.

Frantic have responded to the complexities of this situation with gener­ osity and openness. They acknowledge the role that actors and others have played in the making of the productions (for example the list in the

script/programme of those contributing to the development of Beautiful Burnout; Lavery 2010). Historically, several influential practitioners have experimented with writers as core collaborators in their processes. In some cases (such as with Jacques Copeau, Vsevolod Meyerhold and Joseph Chai­ kin), movement was central to the creative processes within which the writer was involved. Michel Saint-Denis’ production of Noé (1931) for La Compagnie des Quinze relied upon the playwright André Obey’s knowledge of the skills that the company had developed. In a similar fashion, Jean-Claude van Itallie was able to build on a knowledge of the working methods of Chaikin’s Open Theatre in writing his play America Hurrah (1966). Such examples reveal that there is a history to this kind of collaboration between theatre directors and writers; but these are relatively isolated examples of collaborative practice within an indus­ try that historically has operated along far more hierarchical lines, and with more traditional approaches to ownership of intellectual property. More recently, the emergence of contemporary devised performance has emphasised the decentring of the authorial voice and allowed mul­ tiple perspectives to contribute to the composition of the performance. This is certainly true for some of Frantic’s earlier work, but they have increasingly placed value on the particular skills of the writer within the theatre-making process. In doing so they present an interesting and unusual bridge between devised theatre-making practices and more conventional approaches to making theatre – a position that few other physical companies (Complicité and Kneehigh might be examples) have attempted to establish or succeeded in achieving. Liz Tomlin, in her detailed review of British theatre of this period, notes an Arts Council bias during the late 1990s and early 2000s against new writing as inno­ vation and in favour of devised performance (2015: 95), and identifies Frantic Assembly as one of the few companies that managed to find a way to innovate through a combination of both (ibid.: 100). LEARNING AND TRAINING: FRANTIC ASSEMBLY AND EDUCATION

Frantic emerged as a young company with a strong ‘can do’ culture; their professional development was the result of learning to empower themselves. This theme of empowerment has been a strong driving force throughout their history and continues to drive much that they do. K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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As Cait Davis (2019) sees it, Frantic embody a politics of enabling access to cultural production, in particular for working-class young men and women. Encouraging people to make their own work – to just do it – deeply informs their approach to education and training. Davis suggests that Frantic successfully rode this change in attitude to theatre-making in the 1990s; they experienced it themselves, and then used that expe­ rience to enable others to benefit too. The company states that each year it works with over 14,500 young people aged over 14 (Frantic Assembly 2020b). It would be easy to see training and education on this sort of scale as just a highly effective way of promoting the company’s productions; this would be to underesti­ mate and misunderstand completely the importance of such work to Frantic Assembly. As we have seen, continuing training and develop­ ment was a central strand of the way the company worked in the early days. They created workshops and residencies for schools and colleges right from their first production. Running workshops was a way to earn money, but also another way to refine and explore the skills, exercises and techniques that they were learning from others. Training and devel­ opment were thus always a core activity for the company. The devel­ opment of new work was not a static process – work was constantly developing as the company learnt from the experience of touring and performing their devised pieces; this process naturally informed their approach to training and education work. Their workshop process was never about creating a finished product by the end, but about exploring innovative ways to create meaning through movement, text and use of space; Graham makes the distinction that, ‘Many people’s workshops explore the themes of the production but we were looking to share the process’ (Graham 2019: 61). At the time they started, in the mid-1990s, physical theatre was becoming increasingly attractive to schools, colleges and universities. Frantic’s workshops, combining physical activity, text, music and improvisation were both accessible and challenging. Participants were quickly able to see results and to feel they were capable of creating dynamic physical sequences. As well as delivering workshops for stu­ dents, Frantic went on to develop workshops for teachers. This had two important effects: firstly, it created a network of teachers across the country who all felt supported and enabled to integrate Frantic’s process into their own teaching, thus rapidly disseminating it; sec­ ondly, it strengthened and supported a pedagogy of empowerment

and collaboration, through which the mystique of creativity could be challenged, and which enabled others to find their own creative voices. For Graham, the central theme of the Frantic Method is empowerment (ibid.: 63), and the message that: ‘you can be involved, you do have a voice, you can create’ (ibid.). The resource packs that accompany productions are intended to be ‘authentic’, in the sense that they are written by the director, sometimes with input from others in the crea­ tive team, in order genuinely to reflect on and share the processes and experiences that went into creating a particular show. The collaboration and openness discussed at the start of this chapter are in part based on a willingness to admit ‘I don’t know what we should do here’ in the face of a creative challenge. This is a willingness that grew from Graham, Hoggett and Middleton’s frank admission of their own relative lack of knowledge and experience when they started the company. This humility also informs the company’s workshop practice. The workshops are designed not to create Frantic Assembly clones who re-make what they have seen on stage, nor to devise performances for examinations (Frantic Assembly 2020a). The focus instead is on the shar­ ing of skills and methods that might help participants discover their own creativity. This is a pedagogy that echoes some of the precepts of the French philosopher Jacques Rancière (1940–): the possibility of teaching without knowing, of working from a position not of expertise but of equality of intelligence. Rancière writes of the need of the master and the student to be always searching: ‘He [sic] doesn’t necessarily find what he was looking for, and even less what he was supposed to find. But he finds something new to relate to the thing that he already knows’ (1991: 33). Graham and Hoggett quickly worked out that knowing too much about how to analyse and theorise performance was not going to help them to find their own creative voice as a company; as Graham has stated, ‘I think if we were to recognise what the component parts were, that might have terrified us. That would have shown us what we were lacking’ (Evans 2019: 77). This recognition has informed their education and training work. It explains their reluctance to engage in debate over definitions of physical theatre, or to codify what they do and how they do it in metic­ ulous detail. The aim is not to tell participants how to be like Frantic Assembly, but to show how a series of processes and tasks can help them find out what they want to say and how they might want to say it. Central to such a process is the task of encouraging and support­ ing participants to go past what they would normally feel comfortable K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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and confident in doing. This is where the movement work is so impor­ tant: it offers early encouragement, building confidence and developing skills and techniques to keep the creative work going. The focus on movement work means that the workshops are fun and playful, and that participants are quickly engaged in action and often, as a result, less self-conscious. The Frantic Method opens up to participants the ways in which bodies can tell stories; this is often a revelation and enables new and creative approaches to theatre-making for those who have not experi­ enced it before. The emphasis on movement can encourage boldness – a boldness to be present physically, to be confident in what the body can do, and to explore new ways of creating and performing new material; as Paulo Freire has argued, ‘true education incarnates the permanent search of people together with others for their becoming fully human in the world in which they exist’ (1983: 96). Additionally, the Frantic Method is about working to ‘establish progress from the simplest dis­ coveries’ (Frantic Assembly 2020a), meaning that the process can be applied at almost any level. Chapter 4 provides an example of this pro­ cess and an indication of how these principles work in practice. IGNITION

The Ignition scheme, started in 2008, brings together many of the strands explored in this chapter. Initially designed to provide opportunities for young working-class men who would otherwise struggle to access oppor­ tunities to engage with this kind of creative work, the scheme has, as of 2019, expanded to include a parallel programme for young women. Igni­ tion sets out to provide ‘an innovative, free vocational training programme for young people, particularly targeting those with little previous expe­ rience of, or access to, the arts’ (Frantic Assembly 2020a). Constructed around the methods underpinning the company’s work in schools and col­ leges, and the key principles behind their devising and rehearsal processes, the scheme uses intensive residencies around the UK (for example, Plym­ outh, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Corby, Cardiff and Norwich) to bring together a geographically and culturally mixed group of participants for a final process during which they create their own show for presentation at a London venue. The project aims to train and support young men, and now women, who wouldn’t necessarily have thought of doing theatre, identifying ‘talent that needs the opportunity to step into the world’ (Hollands 2019). This is a mission that Graham feels passionate

Figure 2.2 Ignition 2017, directed by Neil Bettles. Stratford Circus Arts Centre, London. Source: Photo by Scott Graham.

about, connecting, as it does, with his own roots as a working-class male from Corby, a small industrial town in the Midlands. Ignition succeeds in creating a strong sense of ensemble and ‘an amaz­ ing shared language between anyone that’s been through that process’ (Riordan 2019). Even drawing together graduates of the programme from different cohorts, as Bettles did for The Unreturning, ‘there’s less explaining, less language needed in the room’: ‘give them a task and they fly, they just go with it’ (ibid.). Furthermore, post-Ignition, some for­ mer participants have been supported through a development process that has enabled them to become Frantic Practitioners and contribute to the future delivery of company training activities. They progress through shadowing workshops and/or rehearsals, peer-mentoring participants, co-leading sessions, and taking part in Skill Share meetings with other practitioners. This is a considered and structured process that builds deep understanding of the Frantic Method, enables new ideas to feed into the company’s education work, and creates strong networks of practitioners with shared experiences and knowledge; it also produces a strong sense of belonging and shared languages of theatre-making. K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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Some criticism has been levelled at the company regarding the initial focus on working-class males. However, it is important to recognise that the working classes have been statistically under-represented in the arts and creative industries for a long time, and that working-class men have been historically marginalised in relation to dance and physical theatre (see Brook, O’Brien and Taylor 2018). A single-sex (all-male) process requires its facilitators to be alert to a number of particular questions, of course, such as how to ensure that the versions of mas­ culinity in the room are as inclusive of queer and transgender identities as of heterosexual, cis-gender ones. This means avoiding assumptions about the sexuality and/or gender of participants in the room and mak­ ing sure that the movement work is not assuming dominant sexualities. Where narratives or gestures of love or sexuality are invoked in a work­ shop (whether Ignition or elsewhere), they are typically open-ended and often involve same-sex and changing partnerships. For some time, there has been a determination within the company to initiate a wom­ en’s programme. As Georgina Lamb, a long-term Frantic Associate, says, ‘When I began working with Frantic in the early days of the com­ pany, not so many women were receiving that type of training. I’m so glad that they have introduced a female Ignition programme, because absolutely that should be in place’ (Lamb 2019). The two Ignition schemes complete the circle by connecting the contemporary learning and training work of the company with its own roots in the enterprise of three young, working-class theatre-makers. As Sean Hollands states, That’s the whole point of Frantic; the reason why we’re so active in sharing everything is because we want people to take the ideas of the process and to make their own work and run with it. The whole point of being able to create content in that way is for it to be a springboard into something else. (Hollands 2019)

CONCLUSION

The body announces its presence in Frantic’s work – it is not recessive, quiet, docile, an instrument of the mind or a support for the voice. For Frantic, the body is collaborative; their work requires bodies that come together to express, to create, and to engage with the space. The move­ ment in their shows is hardly ever about the performer on their own; most of their physicality requires the movement of others to support it,

enable it, give it meaning, allow it, provoke it, and so on. This makes the Frantic body a social body, a body that exists within a network of physical and spatial relationships with other bodies, other people. It matters what this body does and with whom, and, as has been argued earlier in this chapter, it is the social nature of the relationship between bodies, movement, making, text, character and drama that makes Fran­ tic’s work political. It is of course a body that, in this sense, belongs to the performer and not to the director – their practice has grown from a culture of devising, making and performing that enables the individual performer’s body to become a focus for making meaning and creating theatre. The Frantic performer is never simply occupying the physical space of the character. They repeatedly move out beyond that space into the space of others and in order to engage with the space of the stage environment (the design). In doing so, the performance space variously opens up, closes down, changes and is challenged. It is no longer sim­ ply a space through which characters move in an everyday manner; it is a space created and shaped by, responding to and giving dynamic to, emotional tension, dramatic relationship, atmosphere, thematic drive and mood. This is a change to the use of theatrical space that was orig­ inally opened up by experimental approaches to the stage through­ out the twentieth century. Such experiment has more recently been driven forward – and brought closer to the mainstream – by the work of physical theatre companies such as Complicité, DV8, Gecko, and Frantic. Furthermore, the Frantic performer is surrounded by text, music and design elements that have evolved within the same process that has shaped their performance. In providing such a rich and dynamic combination of text, performer, design, music and space, Frantic have, alongside Complicité and Kneehigh, done much to bridge the divides between contemporary devised performance and text-based theatre, and between alternative physical theatre practice and some of the major theatrical institutions. Frantic’s collaborative approach has impacted on the working practices of some major institutions in the UK as well as on the work of leading UK theatre directors (for example, Mari­ anne Elliott, Rufus Norris, John Tiffany, Tom Morris and Vicky Feath­ erstone). It has helped to change the dynamics of the rehearsal space, the profile of movement within that space, and the spirit within which rehearsals take place. K E Y W R IT I N G S, P R I N C I P L E S AN D I D E AS

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IDEAS I N P R O DU CT ION

Hymns and Stockholm

HYMNS: TEXT RECONSTRUCTED

As we saw in Chapter 1, Frantic’s first professional production, Look Back in Anger, borrowed much from Volcano Theatre. It deconstructed an existing, iconic and canonic text, introducing an explosive, sweaty physicality of leaps, sprints and rolls. And it sought to reposition and reignite this tale, nearly half a century old at that time, for a current, younger generation who were not necessarily regular theatre-goers. Though it wasn’t until later that Graham and Hoggett experienced a definitive break from the influence of Volcano, it is instructive to note a key bifurcation even at this formative moment. It is a political differ­ ence. Volcano’s post-punk physical theatre embodied a radical politics of gender, class and identity; the text Frantic chose as their calling-card debut had similar fire in its belly but was, crucially, domestic and personal in its politics. The ‘anger’ of the title is unfocused, inwardly directed and fuelled by a sense of personal failure to connect, rather than tak­ ing aim at institutions beyond the household: as Dan Rebellato iden­ tifies, surveying the plays of the 1950s, ‘[t]he individual is the site that marks the opposing tensions of public affluence and private cultural decline’ (1999: 30). Graham and Hoggett, time and again, have turned to personal anecdote rather than political manifesto for inspiration; to a homely, social or intimate setting rather than a class battleground; to

the unpicking of minute shifts between friends, lovers or family rather than bold statements about vast movements between cultural moments (see also Chapter 2). As Hoggett has explained, ‘[w]e believed the work should come from conversations we’d had together and be conversational in tone’ (in Cavendish 1999). Their emergence into the mainstream over­ lapped closely with the rise of New Labour, and with the related ‘Cool Britannia’ branding which saw artwork like Tracey Emin’s My Bed and Everyone I Have Ever Slept With similarly tackle questions of interpersonal relationships and the public gaze in distinctly domestic settings. Both of the productions we have chosen as exemplars through which to explore Frantic’s developing styles and rehearsal methodologies engaged with such questions. They are also both seen by the company’s founders as key moments of progression, and both consolidated some aspects of the evolving notion of a Frantic Method. The first, Hymns (1999, 2005), might be the ur-text of Frantic’s politics of intimacy, poignancy, gender and risk. At the very least, it was, in Graham’s assessment, ‘a big statement of intent’ for the company (2018b). The show arose from a new sense of confidence on larger stages, new con­ nections forged in the move to Battersea Arts Centre, and an effort to begin planning over the longer term. Facilitated by – and building on – the success of Sell Out, it was a marked contrast to the avowedly hasty conception and development of that production. Hymns was based on an idea that Graham and Hoggett had been discussing over a number of years, was developed through carefully selected collaborations, and was the company’s first all-male show. THE BOYS

Hymns begins in dim light, an unexpectedly low-key start given the rep­ utation the company had for opening their shows with loud, pumping techno music. Instead, the pale grey light picks out four men suspended somewhere high on the set of steel girders and ladders. Something else can be glimpsed in the light, some sort of container – an urn – dangerously high up, far above stage level. Perhaps, too, we can make out an upended table, a few chairs along the back of the stage. The men descend, and solemnly raise a bottle to offer ‘A toast. To Jimi.’ In a freeze-frame, the light flicks to a ghostly blue. Music kicks in: not a four-to-the-floor dance beat, but a looping, ostinato classical piece, the I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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first movement in Karl Jenkins’ String Quartet No. 2, The Fifth Season. The four men, all in formal but cheaply-tailored black suits, perform a sweeping, slow-motion choreography of arms round shoulders, deep leans, and slips away. This play of imagery and movement, between the abstract and the familiar, invites the audience to lean in, too. Then, as the music steps into a yet more strident variation, the men’s movement explodes into speed as, suddenly laughing together, they compete to outdo each other with bad-taste jokes that imply a laddish intimacy. They finish each other’s gags and movements, catching and supporting each other in a flowing exchange of wit, weight and momentum. The opening of Hymns gave a clear indication that Frantic intended to play with a wider and subtler palette than in previous shows. This was indicative of their growing mastery of mood and stage rhythm, as well as a much more varied range of contact-driven movement. Also playing with the audience’s expectations for a Frantic performance, the show’s soundtrack moves from sparse pop such as Lullaby by Lamb, to high-energy, high-volume club tracks by artists such as Hybrid and Keoki, to choral music befitting of the starkness and solemnity of the setting. (See Graham 2005: 20 for a full list of tracks used in the 1999 production.) The story that follows sees Scott (Graham), Steven (Hog­ gett), Karl (Sullivan) and Simon (Rees) bicker and banter over the details of their friend Jimi’s suicide, and the way the group is atomising now that Scott, increasingly career-minded, has moved away. Caught awk­ wardly between the joshing and club music of their youth, and the grav­ itas and solemnity of the funeral, these characters arose from Graham and Hoggett’s desire to create a show about masculinity – specifically, to explore onstage the way that young male friendship tends to reject the sharing of emotion. The dialogue is often accompanied by flowing choreography, the show itching to stay in motion – but it’s also punc­ tuated by scenes of slower, quieter reflection in which single, tightly synchronised shifts of position are allowed to speak volumes. Hymns was also a statement of intent about the broadening of Fran­ tic’s horizons in terms of the performers with whom they would work, their willingness to move beyond the semi-regular ensemble from which they had hitherto constituted their casts. From now on the pro­ duction, and moreover the Frantic brand, was no longer contingent on the identities of members of the earlier Frantic ‘gang’, all of whom, except Graham, Hoggett and the now-departed Spencer Hazel, were women: Korina Biggs, Cait Davis and Georgina Lamb, among others.

Figure 3.1 Hymns by Chris O’Connell (2005 revival, Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), directed by Liam Steel, co-directed by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett. Performers: Joseph Traynor, Steven Hoggett, Karl Sullivan, and Eddie Kay. Source: Photo by Scott Graham.

Different contributors recall different responses to this. Hymns direc­ tor Liam Steel, who had ‘avidly’ followed almost all of Frantic’s earlier work, felt that their earlier reliance on a house style had left Graham, Hoggett and Middleton in something of a ‘rut’, from which he saw an opportunity to work with them to discover something fresh, to ‘break that mould’ (Steel 2019). The female performers might have felt, understandably, as though the production left them sidelined by ‘the boys’. Several of them, however, including Davis and Lamb, main­ tained strong connections with the company and would appear again in later shows. For Graham and Hoggett, the all-male show was always intended to be paired with an all-female one, which came about in the form of Underworld, scripted by Nicola McCartney, in 2001. Sell Out, the production before Hymns, had been closely shaped around the identities of the existing company members, not least through the I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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use of Wynne’s questionnaires, with the writer at one point describing an early draft as ‘Four characters in search of an idea: Kate, Ansti, Ste­ phen, Scot’. Hymns, on the other hand, started from a more concrete set of plot ideas, which preceded the writer’s engagement with the per­ sonalities of the performers. The process of creating Hymns came from a longer and more careful period of consideration, and discussion with a wider team of people, with the result that the brief agreed for the pro­ ject was much more fleshed-out than that for any of their earlier works.

Liam Steel (1966–) is an internationally renowned physical theatre practitioner who has created work with many significant UK-based com­ panies including Complicité, Volcano Theatre Company, Nigel Char­ nock & Company, David Glass Ensemble, and Frantic Assembly. He was a core member of DV8 Physical Theatre from 1992 to 2000, working on five acclaimed stage productions and the film version of Enter Achilles (1996). In 2003 he formed Stan Won’t Dance in order to further explore the relationship between text and movement. More recently, Steel has directed and choreographed a large number of operas, musicals and dance works for stage and screen, including providing the musical stag­ ing for the award-winning 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables.

Graham and Hoggett had first met Liam Steel before they had formed Frantic, when he came to Swansea as a performer in Volcano’s L.O.V.E. They had stayed in touch, and Steel saw all of their shows from Klub onwards. Though he had declined earlier invitations to work with them, he had recommended a number of other choreographers as collabora­ tors, such as TC Howard for Sell Out; he was an influential part of the growing Frantic constellation. Their approach grew from this ad hoc self-training method, and was in Steel’s view all the more beautiful and open for it: They knew they needed to learn, and there was no ego surrounding that. It was very much ‘we need to learn; who can you put us in touch with?’ They were, openly, magpies in terms of working with people and going, ‘can you teach us how to do this?’ (Steel 2019)

What drew Steel to the idea behind Hymns was his own long-standing interest in questions relating to the gendered politics of gesture and the body. Shortly before his work on Hymns, he had performed in and been assistant director on DV8’s Enter Achilles (1995), itself a memo­ rable exploration of the everyday performance conventions of stere­ otypical manliness, set in a gaudy but dog-eared pub. An investigation of ‘men’s relationships in terms of what’s not said and how we behave with each other has always been at the core’ of much of his work (Steel 2019), including with his own earlier company, Boys Will Be Boys. This was coupled with his interest in exploring the verbal and physical texts of a performance in parallel, challenging performers to make each ele­ ment as eloquent as the other. So, for Steel, Hymns represented another opportunity to explore this long-standing set of fascinations, ‘a progres­ sion in terms of my own passion’ (ibid.). The show’s exploration of masculinity is visually signified by the black suits, evoking the cool male imagery of the Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs (1992), and the constant presence of lager bottles as part of the choreography, passed from hand to hand, placed on and slid along the table. This design is also credited to Steel, though as Graham puts it, the ‘ideas for the design came from early discussions in the rehearsal room’ (2005: 5). Physically, much of the movement springs from gestures of backslapping and what we might read as ‘manly’ embraces, and below we will explore some of the ways the production sought to problematise and ironise physical and verbal clichés of masculinity. SUPPORTING NEW WRITING

The inspiration behind the play was anecdotal, drawing on ‘personal expe­ riences of grieving’ (Graham 2005: 4) and various observations of male behaviour at funerals: ‘It was strange – there were tears in their eyes, but they couldn’t even bring themselves to give each other a hug’ (Steel in Cavendish 1999). It was Vicky Featherstone, a new friend of the company and recently-appointed Artistic Director of Paines Plough new writing company, who suggested Chris O’Connell as the writer for this project. Chris O’Connell (1963–) is a writer, director, and co-founder of Thea­ tre Absolute. Having spent years as an actor in London and Edinburgh, O’Connell relocated to his native town of Coventry in 1992 and formed I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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Theatre Absolute with producer Julia Negus. In 1999, Vicky Feath­ erstone took him on as writer-in-residence at Paines Plough, and his contemporaneous show for Theatre Absolute, Car, gained critical and audience acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, winning a Fringe First. Drawing on O’Connell’s day job as a probation officer and his experiences of devising, documentary and community theatre, Car became his calling card and kicked off a trilogy of plays (with Raw, 2001 and Kid, 2003) depicting disaffected youth, balancing between hope and despair.

O’Connell, Graham and Hoggett had much in common. With Thea­ tre Absolute, O’Connell had, like Frantic, spent five years develop­ ing a sense of how to run a company and making theatre work which resisted rigid distinctions between writing, directing and performing. He recalls that Frantic ‘really struck me as a company who knew what they wanted to make’ (2019). This set them apart from other thea­ tre companies seeking to commission writers, where the writer might drive the conception of the piece more strongly. Frantic instead aimed to match the story they wanted to tell to a writer who could help them tell it. O’Connell’s work had a driving rhythm and a poetic twist on everyday speech which in some ways recalled Spencer Hazel’s style, though O’Connell was more interested in character interactions and the depiction of dramatic tension and crisis points in young people’s lives than Hazel’s more avant-garde experimentation. His play Car is, like Hymns, an all-male piece which employs an impressionistic flow between settings and a fluid staging, with imaginative physical inter­ ludes, to depict the lives of four young men as they struggle to find out­ lets for their restless, repressed energies, including through the chaotic buzz of stealing cars. There are clear overlaps with the interests that drove Graham and Hoggett to Hymns, though Car depicts actual criminal behaviour, and examines the clash between a middle-class, middle-aged family man, Gary – a self-proclaimed ‘good citizen’ (O’Connell 2003: 73) – and one of the dispossessed lads who steal his car. The story which became Hymns, thrashed out by Hoggett, Graham and Steel in discussions with O’Connell, was constructed around cer­ tain ‘pillars of the piece’ (O’Connell 2019). It would be about mascu­ linity, about fraternity, about ‘blokes’; there would be a loss, a suicide,

a secret. The secret was crucial to the drama of the play, though at first its precise nature wasn’t set by Graham and Hoggett. Through those conversations, it was decided that one of the characters would be gay and unable to come out to the others in the group. As these elements were being finalised, O’Connell also attended sessions at Battersea Arts Centre in which, through improvisations and further discussions, he got to know the performers to some extent; these sessions were, however, more about understanding their personalities than about generating tex­ tual material that would be directly used in performance. He describes himself as a writer who ‘follows his nose’, and by this point he was comfortable, from his previous directorial and devising work, setting scenarios for the improvisations, developing and building on what he saw emerging through the personalities in the room (O’Connell 2019). While, as discussed in Chapter 1, Graham and Hoggett were moving towards ‘acting with a capital A’ (Hoggett in Cooper 1999), it was clear to O’Connell that they were uninterested in any Stanislavskian analysis of character and text: ‘What I knew I couldn’t do was write a piece in which each character had an involved fictional backstory’ (O’Connell in Cavendish 1999). The process behind Frantic shows became more clearly delineated with Hymns. Graham and Hoggett were solely responsible for the original idea, and worked as the creative hub of the production, eliciting input from the range of collaborators as required (and absorbing expertise from those collaborators in developing their own set of approaches). They had of course had significant input into the genesis and devel­ opment of the company’s earlier shows, but the driving ideas behind the Generation Trilogy had generally been attributed to the ‘troupe’ or company identity – an identity which became more closely fixed to Graham and Hoggett as the group of regular collaborators was now becoming more dispersed. If working with Michael Wynne on Sell Out had introduced Graham and Hoggett to a range of writerly devising tasks which started them considering the development of character and text through subtler and more oblique approaches, Hymns called on them to use dramaturgical skills developed through the Generation Trilogy in shaping and reshap­ ing that text. Though writer Chris O’Connell had developed his craft in rehearsal rooms as a writer/director and artistic director of his own company, working with this physically alert, heavily devising-based company was not an immediately smooth process. In the first draft he I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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delivered, there was a sense that he’d tried too hard to provide a ‘phys­ ical theatre’ backdrop for the show. In his writer’s note to the 2005 edition of the play, O’Connell confesses to having been ‘perplexed, to say the least, as to how I could write a play for four ridiculously fit guys who were going to throw themselves around a stage’ (O’Connell 2005: 12). And the director/performers felt the same way: O’Connell had initially bent over backwards to write a physical show. [He] compromised him­ self horribly in that he set it in the house of the guy who’d died, and he was a circus performer, or a street performer, and all of the tools of his trade were around. And we asked him ‘Why have you done that?’ ‘To give you physicality,’ [he replied.] ‘Stuff to play with.’ (Graham 2008)

Graham and Hoggett saw their job as that of reassuring the writer of the ‘eloquence of silence’ (ibid.). The writer, in this process, did not need to factor physical expressivity into their text; rather, ‘the physi­ cality’s in the gaps. It’s in all the things the boys want to say and can’t say’ (ibid.). O’Connell started to realise that his function in Frantic’s process was not to imagine the physical, as he might when producing work for Theatre Absolute, but ‘to provide the bones of the story’ (O’Connell 2019). The text that he produced became ‘the property of the company, the property of the rehearsal room’ (ibid.), in a drama­ turgical editing process into which he was nonetheless warmly invited. Following the delivery of his draft, Graham, Hoggett, Steel and O’Con­ nell sat in a corner and ‘got scissors out’, restructuring and trimming the text. To O’Connell this was exciting: ‘We were able to take stuff out. It’s really good to just pare it down, which is a good lesson for any writer. Plays are physical things, they’re not just on paper’ (ibid.). The writer emphasises both how supportive this was, and how it was impor­ tant to the company that he didn’t feel possessive over the text he’d so far produced. ‘I didn’t feel it was like, “thank you for providing the service, now f--- off.” It was much more like, “Thank you. Now come into the process”.’ He was thrilled to watch the text being reshaped and reformed as rehearsals began, and ‘that was when suddenly the move­ ment emerged through the text’ (ibid.). The piece that resulted is atmospheric rather than specific in its set­ ting, with the opening ostensibly located at ‘a funeral’, indicated by

the uniform black suits and ties worn by all four performers and the incorporation of echoing organ music and psalms into the soundtrack. In a realist reading, the rest of the play would seem to take place at a number of pubs or bars, as suggested by the repeated instances of one or another of the men offering to fetch a drink. But really, it is a psycho­ logical, not a literal site. The timescale of the narrative is also unclear, with shifts in mood or time between what’s demarcated in the script as ‘scenes’ indicated by physical interludes and the use of the table, chairs and multileveled set in differing configurations. Yet it reads to an audi­ ence as a continuous timeframe, and could all be taking place across one afternoon and evening of reminiscence and retribution between the men. Notably, the direct address which played a role in all of Frantic’s previous work had all but disappeared: the stream of jokes which open the play might appear at first to operate on similar terms to the lists and streams of consciousness of the Generation Trilogy, but they in fact work plausibly as rituals of familiarity enacted between the characters rather than solely for the audience. These repeated in-jokes and rou­ tines serve to demonstrate that these characters have known each other since they were teenagers. This is also one of several overlaps with DV8’s Enter Achilles. There, too, the dramaturgy of the piece was arranged around a variety of seg­ ments, riffing on the rituals of the (heterosexual) male night at the pub. Enter Achilles contained a similar sequence in which the men shared badtaste jokes, and several scenes in which full pint glasses were passed from person to person, held out tantalisingly to one of the other men or stolen from a hapless victim – the glasses even featured as partners in duets. The creation of that work was influential on the methods Steel brought to bear with Frantic, and which overlapped with the crea­ tive process Frantic had been developing for themselves: Enter Achil­ les sprung from ‘field trips’ to pubs and strip clubs, and from material derived from the performers’ own experiences. ‘We started every day with a different issue related to our personal experiences about being men’ (Steel in Hohenadel 1997). Neither piece was wholly abstract or purely thematically arranged, though. Both Enter Achilles and Hymns feature dramatic progression and the escalation of narrative stakes: for instance, in DV8’s production, the arrival of an outsider figure and his attempts to integrate into or interrogate the other men’s rituals, and the ongoing relationship one performer has with an inflatable doll. But I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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Hymns is more focused around the narrative of the death of the friend. The ‘riffs’ here are what happens while they are trying not to talk about Jimi’s suicide. Critical responses to the work almost universally tended to separate their assessments of the text from those of the physicality. The latter came in for great praise, from newcomers to Frantic’s work as well as those who professed familiarity with the company. Several pointed out the DV8 connection, with Sierz (1999) – already a regular supporter of Frantic’s work – even finding Hymns ‘clearly derivative of innova­ tive groups such as DV8 dance company’. This, though, was within a broadly very positive assessment. And several other reviewers who had seen earlier shows noted Hymns as a ‘departure’ for the company (Gard­ ner 1999b, Hemming 1999). Overall, the view seemed to be that the physicality was in a ‘raw, exciting […] idiom’ (Halliburton 1999) that ‘generate[d] excitement and real tension’ (Kingston 1999), but that the story ended up ‘curiously unmoving’ (Jones 1999) despite some mer­ its. Furthermore, the vocal performances of the cast came in for criti­ cism, some seeing them as clearly under-equipped to project into the larger space of the Lyric, Hammersmith (Hemming 1999). Nonetheless, reviewers lauded the production – and the company – as modern and exciting: ‘crucial viewing for anybody interested in the future of the theatre’ (Edwardes 1999). The show was hugely successful in reaching out to existing Frantic followers and new audiences in large numbers, with the company successfully generating the sense of a ‘gang’ not just onstage, but extending outwards to theatre-goers seeking an energising sense of event and connection. Feeling that the production was a significant moment for the com­ pany but that as a play it lacked the impact they felt the story ultimately could deliver, Frantic decided to return to the piece for their tenth anniversary, significantly re-structuring and adding to the plot. The education pack for this 2005 restaging outlines the discussions between Hoggett, Graham and Steel as they challenged quite integral elements of the production: they add the detail that one of the group of friends, Scott, in fact saw Jimi the night before he killed himself, but did not stay with him to help him through his distress. A range of implications for the story are considered in a letter to O’Connell, also quoted in the resource, with its unnamed author – presumably Graham and/or Hoggett – concluding ‘I think this could be the can of worms that we should open’ (Graham 2005: 7). The education pack, and the processes

it describes, thus see Graham and Hoggett writing and working with growing confidence on a dramaturgical front. Not only are they editing the text, they provide the psychological insights which drive the nar­ rative. While they are perhaps not concerned with ‘involved fictional backstory’ (in O’Connell’s assessment), the process of putting together, and restaging, Hymns evidenced the increasing importance of narrative and character to the company’s work, and the centrality of Graham and Hoggett in the creation and evolution of these aspects of the show. From the 1999 Hymns onwards, Graham and Hoggett began increas­ ingly to think of themselves as being at the nexus between the verbal and the physical, balancing the demands of expressive physicality and lyrical text. Hoggett said of Hymns, at the time of its premiere perfor­ mance, that collaborators like Steel and writer Chris O’Connell ‘pull us different ways, and demand different things of us, but at the end of the day it’s all for the good’ in crafting a more fully-rounded and ‘eloquent’ theatrical experience (Cooper 1999). It was as important for the com­ pany to find writers able to locate the ‘gaps’ between words as it was to work with directors who would push their physical skills and stamina. The early experience with O’Connell was a likely contributor to Hog­ gett’s summary, in 2001, that whereas some writers of physical theatre scripts put in scenes where all of a sudden everyone jumps around, the best thing for us is to receive a script that doesn’t have any of that, but which keeps it wide open. Then, working with the writer, we can discover what happens in the gaps. (Hoggett in Logan 2001)

Over the years since Hymns, Graham has repeatedly emphasised the cru­ cial role of the ‘eloquence of silence’ in creating a successful collabora­ tion between the verbal and the physical: ‘As much as we love the big physicality, we know that it’s going to be the flutter of an eyelid that’s going to rip your heart out, and it’s about earning those moments’ (Gra­ ham 2011a). In The Frantic Book (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 46–7), this is articulated as ‘textual space’, the air or absence where ‘another (phys­ ical) language might be allowed (or best placed) to speak eloquently’. In other words, Frantic’s physicality illustrates ‘the subtext rather than the context’ (ibid.: 46). Later in The Frantic Book, Hymns is the earliest show referenced as involving a writing process in which this interaction between physicality and text was central to meaning-making. Bryony I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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Lavery and Abi Morgan are also cited as examples of writers interested in what is left unsaid or cannot be expressed in words, and this consid­ eration of ‘gaps’ in the verbal text will be developed below, and in our section examining Stockholm (2007), Frantic’s first collaboration with Lavery. ELOQUENCE AND INARTICULACY – PHYSICALITY ‘IN THE GAPS’

Hymns is Graham, Hoggett, Steel and O’Connell’s attempt to create ‘an eloquent production about inarticulacy’ (Graham 2005: 5). It is a show about what is left unsaid, about the gaps within and beneath verbal text, and about the inadequacy of spoken language in expressing grief, intimacy or rage. All of the company’s previous works had included both ornately verbal and expressively physical scenes, and in Sell Out they’d created a key moment by replaying a scene, removing the words but precisely replaying the gestures. With the audience newly aware of the context behind the situation, this delivered one of the production’s most powerful emotional blows. The removal of the text here had been the writer Wynne’s suggestion, but it is a tactic that has resurfaced in the company’s work a number of times, including in Hymns. At the end of the 2005 staging, the character of Karl mournfully tells jokes until he’s drowned out by the swelling music. As in Sell Out’s repeated scene, the audience knows what the character is saying – or doing – with his words, so it becomes possible to remove the words from the scene altogether. Instead, the gestures and positioning of the perform­ ers’ bodies – read in the light of the emotive force of the accompanying music – replace words as the primary communicators of meaning, and what is actually being said becomes ironised or distanced. The exuber­ ant telling of jokes of the opening, like the gesture of offering each other a beer, is replayed but with an elegiac quality, as the hope of con­ nection and empathy between the young men has dissipated. Here, what Frantic has subsequently dubbed the ‘poignancy of inartic­ ulacy’ (Graham and Hoggett 2009: 202) goes further than in their earlier works: it forms the essential fabric of the piece and takes on a specifically gendered element, as the audience bears witness to four men, friends since school, who now find themselves struggling or refusing to express their emotions in front of each other. As discussed in Chapter 2, this need to connect across a divide of silence is seen by Graham as ‘a big masculine

issue’ (Graham 2018b). In dance, the male body is often ‘invested with power’ (Buckland 1995: 375) but limited in emotional expressiveness: ‘the range of expressions which can be represented […] is restricted at one end of the emotional spectrum’ (ibid.). Buckland surveys Lloyd New­ son’s efforts, through DV8’s dance theatre, to expand the expressivity of the male body onstage, efforts that Steel brought to his own work and to his collaborations with Frantic. He powerfully inflected Graham and Hoggett’s approaches to the devising of physical material to convey nar­ ratives of sexual identity, isolation and tribal affiliation, and together the creative team was keen to explore how physicality might be ‘the principal communicator to the audience’ (Graham 2005: 5). At such moments as the reiterated joke-telling scene there is a very stark detachment of ‘meaning’ from ‘the verbal’, but the impulses that drive Hymns throughout are about the prioritisation of gestural communication in often subtler ways. Steel’s fundamental interest in such work springs from the question ‘What can we reveal about these characters in the choreographic language that wasn’t being said in the text?’ (Steel 2019). As he points out, most of the verbal text of Hymns is ‘pure banter’. This gave him ‘the room, choreographically, to show the other stuff that was going on underneath that banter between those men’ (ibid.). Steel speaks of the communicative nature of physicality in terms which clearly resonated with – and left an influence on – Graham and Hoggett’s approaches, as outlined in Chapter 2. For instance, Steel starts from the principle that ’85 to 90 per cent of our communication is non-verbal […] but we don’t think about it’ (Goat Island et al. 2006). Breaking scenes down to their ‘essence’, and building choreography from the performer’s individual and ‘natural gesture’, Steel says that rather than imposing choreography on text, ‘it’s a matter of marrying that text and that movement together so that essentially there is a play on stage but there’s also a full dance piece on stage’ (ibid.). In Hymns, then, physical and verbal material was conceived as closely together as possible, rather than in alternating sequences. Previously, Steel had felt that Frantic shows consisted of ‘text – scenes – and then you have the blast of the movement and amazing physicality and then back to “the play”’ (Steel 2019). He sought instead to explore how to ‘play with text and movement together. […] The melding of the two’ (ibid.). This gives rise to a choreographic score that is almost constantly in motion, though that is not to say that stillness (or subtler, smaller gesture) has no place in Hymns. A great deal of its physical vocabulary I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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was built by developing peripheral vision and awareness among the per­ formers: ‘listening closely’ to each other in a physical sense, and ‘taking the impulse’ (Graham and Hoggett 2009: 126). From simple, natural gesture such as that of leaning one’s head against one’s hand, coming to sit at a pub table, passing a beer or reaching to touch someone, an intricate choreographic path was sketched. Steel added layers of stops and starts, so at one moment one of the men might be moving close as the others remain motionless; the next, all four might rearrange their posture as if in response. Meaning – subtext – arises ‘in the eye of the beholder’: this ‘physical storytelling’ (ibid.: 128) is simple, economical, and demands that the performer not inflect the gesture with emotion. The sense of time passing in strange and non-naturalistic ways is ampli­ fied by the staggered stop-starts of these individual gestures performed within the group, at times looking like a video playing in reverse. Steel was also alert to how the play between text, physicality and design generates meaning for an audience. As Buckland writes of DV8, ‘The emotional risks that the performers take are paralleled by the physi­ cal risks’ (Buckland 1995: 377); in Hymns the physical risks act as a visual metaphor communicating the emotional risks the characters mostly shy

Figure 3.2 Hymns by Chris O’Connell (2005 revival, Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), directed by Liam Steel, co-directed by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett. Performers: Karl Sullivan, Eddie Kay, Joseph Traynor and Steven Hoggett. Source: Photo by Scott Graham.

away from. For instance, there is a sequence of dialogue in which Steven insists they start really talking to each other about Jimi’s death. He places one of the chairs on the centre-stage table around which they have been sitting, and helps to hold it steady as Simon sits leaning it back onto its hind legs, looking up into a stark overhead spotlight which isolates the one character on the stage and makes the wobbling chair seem all the more unsafe. The precariousness of any emotional vulnerability between the lads is heightened by the simple precarity of the image. Watching this develop in the rehearsal room, O’Connell was excited by the coming together of his writing with the company’s use of physical imagery: The physicality really deepened the moment. So actually the writing could be really quite slight. I didn’t have to do too much with it, because the physicality of what was happening with the chair . . . the subtext was all in that. (O’Connell 2019)

At several key moments, then, Steel’s direction encouraged the com­ pany to use the physical qualities of the set in combination with the (at times strenuous) physicality of the choreography to draw out sub­ text rather than to repeat the text. Just prior to the precarious chair scene, Scott has withdrawn himself physically, as well as emotionally, from the others. He calls down to them from the height of the ladders to dismiss their mournful slump, insisting they need ‘entertaining … otherwise we’ll all top ourselves’ (O’Connell 2005: 35). Later in the performance, the same height is used to suggest the risks of inviting or allowing intimacy, with Scott and Steven hooking chairs into rungs to sit facing each other at a level that feels dangerous. The scene, given the title ‘Guyscrapers’ in The Frantic Book (2009: 82–3), sees Steven trying to break through Scott’s reflexive tendency to be the joker: ‘Just be real,’ he pleads (O’Connell 2005: 41). This semantic entanglement of height, intimacy and risk through the closeness of two performers in suspension above the stage is one that the company employed again in the dénouement of Stockholm, as we will examine below. EXPANDING CHOREOGRAPHY

Like previous choreographers brought in to work with the company, Steel further expanded the movement palette available to Graham and Hoggett. He pushed them hard in terms of the physical exertion of the I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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piece: the racing climbs and plunging falls up and down ladders, the leaps above and under each other, up onto a table where they would play dead just momentarily before rolling off again, planking and jerking in complex sequences. The challenge was also one of counts and com­ plexity, not only in this table-based ‘Slabslammers’ sequence (Graham and Hoggett 2009: 65–7), but particularly in one which the director/ choreographer added very late into tech rehearsals, and which became notorious, as its name suggests, as a ‘Headwrecker’. In this, a number of simple gestures drawn from everyday physicalities (Steel’s ‘natural ges­ ture’) were combined into increasingly complicated sequences of unison and staggered individual movement. Not only that, but they were also synchronised to lines of text drawn from banal day-to-day usage: giv­ ing directions, describing the technical specifications of cars, lasciviously imagining the female form, and other stereotypically ‘manly’ vocabular­ ies. To achieve this effect required intense concentration and precision of delivery, and while not as exhaustingly demanding as much of the rest of the show in terms of physical energy, its humorous, playful cho­ reographic effects were a stand-out moment in the production. Steel’s choreography strung together these postures and gestures of masculin­ ity, exaggerating their absurdity through repetition and the performers’ deadpan delivery, and undermining them with the comically jaunty, clarinet-led backing track Petite Fleur by Chris Barber’s Jazz Band. The Frantic Book (Graham and Hoggett 2009: 61–5) outlines the cre­ ation of the ‘Headwrecker’ sequence. It began with Steel setting each performer one of the above-mentioned ‘stereotypically male’ conver­ sational topics. Having edited the phrases they produced into four frag­ ments of text, Steel then instructed the performers to ‘sit’ the material within four bars of the chosen musical track, Petite Fleur. They were also to deliver the text with as natural a rhythm as possible, playing against and across the beat of the track. Only when they had achieved this was any physical material introduced, with each performer then instructed to create a ‘gestural string’ – hands, arms and torso only – to accompany their text. Once they had mastered this, Steel then surprised them with a new task: to create eight bars of ensemble gestural work to accompany a new text he provided for them all. Steel then required them to create another section blending unison and solo work; and then to finish the sequence with a final unison section. The sequence is emblematic of Frantic’s new awareness of the power of group choreography which shifts between unison and individuality.

While earlier shows had of course involved both group and solo move­ ments in their physical sequences, Steel sparked a much more adventur­ ous interest in the effects that might be produced from the manufacture of ‘happy accidents’, and the establishment and rupturing of simulta­ neous shared choreographies. This is evidenced in a number of quin­ tessential Frantic exercises, such as ‘Quad’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 110–15) and ‘Heavenly Legs’ (ibid.: 56–8). In any workshop or rehearsal process in which ‘strings’ of material are generated, the performers will be encouraged to teach material to each other so that the workshop leader or movement director, viewing from the outside, can sculpt such moments of unison and disunity among larger groups. It is most productive, they found, when performers are not informed of the final destination, whole process, or eventual purpose of the material generated from these ‘building blocks’ (see Chapters 2 and 4). The ‘Headwrecker’ sequence is also indicative of the way that Steel’s work with the company sought to temper the ‘aesthetic of sweat’ that Frantic had brought wholesale from Volcano and the contact work of V-TOL. A significant intervention on Steel’s part was to insist on moments of greater gentleness amongst the sweat and exertion: ‘I knew they could run around and slam into walls, all that. If anything, I’ve tried to bring out a softer quality’ (Cavendish 1999). This notwithstand­ ing, some sequences tested the performers’ stamina to new extremes. In 1999, Graham spoke of feeling that their physical capabilities were only just up to the task of the choreography introduced by Steel: ‘This is the only time it has been able to happen – which is probably just as well, because he has worked us really hard. We might not have been ready for him a few years ago!’ (Graham in Dibdin 1999) Undertaking such extreme and complex overlaying of simultaneous verbal and physical scores proved to be a significant development for the company, and they carried forward several of the principles behind this work into subsequent processes, both with and without Steel. The impor­ tance of forward momentum, and of refining and advancing approaches from one project to the next, is crucial to Frantic. For instance, they thanked their collaborators on Hymns for ‘the constant ability to look forward’ (reproduced in Graham 2005: 4). In practical terms, warmups for physical work should see daily increases in the number of pressups or other exercises across the rehearsal period: ‘One more press-up is progress’ (Graham and Hoggett 2009: 97). This approach to physical training overlaps with the idea of motivating the cast on a personal level: I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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‘It charts an improvement and it is also a promise of what we are going to achieve together’ (ibid.). ‘Always Forward, Never Back’ has become a mantra for the company, and is the subtitle of their 25-year retrospec­ tive publication (Graham 2019). Between the two iterations of Hymns, Graham and Hoggett took steps away from performing to concentrate on direction. But the char­ acters and stories they chose to portray in their work continued to map closely to their own ages and experiences. The revival of Hymns marks, in particular, their shifting relationship with the idea and reality of death, which ‘does change constantly as one gets older’ (Graham 2005: 6). Between those two versions, Steel worked with Graham and Hoggett again on Heavenly (2002), a more comedic rumination on death and its effects on those left behind. This saw the three of them writing, directing and performing together, and sprang from a similar starting point – Heavenly also specifically examined the effects of death on a group of young male friends. While Hymns had marked a key stage in the development of narrative, character and revelation as driving principles in Frantic’s work, Heavenly reverted to older Frantic type, as it involved comic routines and movement sequences that functioned more as stan­ dalone units, organised for best effect rather than with storytelling as the prime interest. Throughout both works, though, the coincidence of the ages of characters and performers – this implicit claim that their work speaks specifically of and to their own generation – contributed strongly to what was identified early in the company’s history as the ‘illusion of absolute honesty’ (Judah 1998a). Hymns ends on a down­ beat, with the sense that this group of mates has changed irreversibly, perhaps irrevocably dispersed like the ashes spilled from their friend’s funeral urn at the climax of the show. The joke isn’t funny any more. In the productions that followed, Frantic would explore ever more unflinchingly brutal interpersonal narratives, and would draw upon their experience of working on text with Chris O’Connell and physical­ ity with Liam Steel to shape the ways they sought to inspire and support the writers and performers with whom they collaborated. STOCKHOLM: TEXT AND SILENCE

Our second case study, Stockholm (2007), premiered nearly a decade after the first performance of Hymns, but Graham and Hoggett had been discussing and circling round its underpinning idea since roughly the

same time. In several ways the production represents the culmination of the company’s preceding decade of work, as various circumstances combined to provide unusually fertile territory for the collaboration between the company, the writer Bryony Lavery, and the designer Laura Hopkins. In both Graham’s and Hoggett’s assessment the show was a truly satisfying realisation of various ways of working they had been striving towards, and a distinct turning point in the company’s his­ tory. The relationship with Lavery was felt to be so successful that she became Frantic’s most frequent writing collaborator, returning to write It Snows… (2008), Beautiful Burnout (2010), and The Believers (2014).

Bryony Lavery (1947–) is a prolific playwright who has been active since the 1970s. Her work is associated with several UK-based feminist theatre companies of the 1970s and 1980s. Since the 1990s she has been commissioned to work on a number of high-profile adaptations, such as Treasure Island for the National Theatre (2014). Her best-known original play is the award-winning Frozen (1998), which deals with the psychol­ ogy of a serial child murderer and the mother of one of his victims. Lav­ ery’s writing generally offers poetic, theatrically imaginative and often comic treatments of stories of grief, love and female empowerment. In an interview pre-dating her collaboration with Frantic, Lavery summarised her main preoccupations as ‘grief, death, sex and anger – they are my specialist subjects’ (Lavery in Kellaway 2002).

While Hymns had explored the barriers to intimacy between a group of old school friends, Stockholm distilled the company’s fascination with the nuances of interpersonal relationships by placing a single couple onstage and scrutinising them intensely. It was initially developed in two separate phases of research and development (R&D) workshops at the NT Studio: a two-week period followed by a further week’s work based on an early draft of the script. Rehearsals subsequently took place over a relatively luxurious six weeks. Early R&D involved two male– female couples of performers: two actors without much experience of physical theatre working alongside two experienced dancers. How­ ever, the company’s intention was always to make it a two-hander – a smaller, more intimate show than those they had previously worked I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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on. The final cast for the production, which was first performed at the Drum Theatre Plymouth on 21 September 2007, consisted of longterm Frantic collaborator Georgina Lamb and Samuel James, who had never worked with the company before and had very little experience of movement-focused performance. Lamb had taken part in some of the R&D sessions, but James was cast afresh to the process and the pair had not previously met. A STORY ABOUT A COUPLE – THE INITIAL IDEA

The suggestion that Bryony Lavery would be an apt collaborator for the idea Graham and Hoggett wanted to develop, and the way they wanted to work on it, came from John Tiffany. The period in which the com­ pany made pool (no water) (2006), Stockholm, and Othello (2008) was one in which the nature of their work with writers, and what they offered playwrights in terms of starting points, had changed definitively: There would be discussions and we’d offer them a workshop where they didn’t have to propose or write anything necessarily. But the idea about writing a bespoke piece about and for a company of performers. That was done by that point. (Hoggett 2019)

Prior to Frantic’s approach, Lavery had not seen any of the company’s work. She agreed to meet the artistic directors, but expected to decline the project. She was, however, charmed by Graham and Hoggett and interested by the idea they proposed, and she found herself agreeing to work with them; Graham’s resource pack on Stockholm confirms that it was ‘the subject matter and the gift of our gab’ (Graham 2007: 7) that convinced the writer to sign up. At that stage, as Lavery recalls, ‘they had the title, and […] Scott kept telling a story about this couple who wanted to be left alone’ (Lavery 2011b). The story mentioned by Lavery points to the source of the show’s subject matter as again one of personal anecdote. It dated back to a time around 1998 when Graham was living in a shared house and overheard a row between one of his housemates and her boyfriend. As the argument became worse and turned into a fight, he and another housemate went

upstairs to offer help, ‘thinking we were going to be of use,’ only to have the couple – together – push the door closed on them. There was a lot of care on our part, on that approach up the stairs, and we thought we understood it, as their friends. Then when we got really close […] we were told [through the gesture of closing the door]: ‘You don’t understand it,’ and told to keep out. […] We thought that was quite a nice journey to take an audience on. (Graham in Graham et al. 2008)

As well as the recurrence of anecdote, polished over time, as the foun­ dation of the company’s work, it is worth noting how Graham presents this initial idea, pre-dating the engagement of a writer, as the ‘journey’ on which they wished to take the audience. Whereas Klub, Flesh and Zero had involved a form modelled on ‘the dramaturgy of the setlist’, the shift to narrative terms becomes more pronounced over time, particu­ larly when Frantic come to work with Lavery. This conceptual framing, and its attribution to Graham, is echoed by the writer herself, talking about the almost-contemporaneous NT Connections piece It Snows…, which they created together. The materials she, Graham and Hoggett had at their disposal in constructing It Snows… were three days, six people (the performers), and then just the story, which actually was Scott’s. Scott gave it in such a beau­ tiful way – there’s no snow; there’s the possibility of snow; it snows; it’s here; it’s gone. Slush. It’s fantastic. (Lavery 2011b)

Lavery suggests that, rather than merely a series of images from which she could work up a narrative, this itself constitutes ‘a story arc’ (ibid.), and that setting up this framework is one of the key aspects of the impetus provided by Graham and Hoggett for the writer in these collaborations. Graham and Hoggett had expected that the R&D work would be similar to that with Ravenhill on pool (no water): the job of the workshop would be to provide disposable material as the basis for what would then become the script. They imagined what they were giving Lavery was ‘all these physical possibilities, or just inspiration for her writing. But what she saw was scenes’ (Graham 2011a). The scenes produced I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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were organised by Graham and Hoggett to produce a ‘framework, a skeletal structure’ – even ‘a dramatic arc’ – for the production (Gra­ ham and Hoggett 2014: 196), which is a sparse but clear outline for the play: A couple Us A day Some events A plea. Some demands. (An ultimatum – the deadline is reached and passed) A recipe/A confession A meal is cooked The last dance (The end of the world) (ibid.)

In the case of Stockholm, the interplay of concern, care, intimacy, and the gesture of exclusion gave rise to a story with a clean, apparently simple structure which was nonetheless driven by psychological com­ plexities, set against what was to be the clearest and most fully realised expression of the domestic sphere that the company had staged. STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

The play, like Hymns, concentrates time, showing us a single day in the life of a couple, Todd and Kali. It juxtaposes an outward appearance of functionality and positivity – they are celebrating Todd’s birthday and looking forward excitedly to their impending trip to Stockholm – with the darker forces that seem to be lurking suppressed around the edges. There is jealousy and dishonesty in the air between the partners, with Kali particularly suspicious of Todd, and seeking to shut other relationships with family and friends out of the space of their home. It is no coincidence that the characters are named after the figures of Death (der Tod in German) and the Hindu goddess of time, power and destruction. This exploration of destructive jealousy in a seemingly stable couple arose through research which Graham and Hoggett started to do into Stockholm syndrome, the name given to a psychological condition in which a hostage begins to empathise – to fall in love, even – with the

hostage-taker. As indicated above, Lavery was intrigued by the subject matter they proposed, and had already shown a deep interest in aberrant psychologies and the extremes of love and sexual attraction, not least in Frozen (1998). In that play, knotty psychological and moral quandaries are woven into a formally inventive text which moves from monologue to dramatic dialogue between the three characters. It invites a complex blend of instinctual rejection and, if not reappraisal, at least problemati­ sation of our understanding of apparently unlikeable characters. The text of Stockholm shows a similarly alert manipulation of the audience’s sympathies through Lavery’s use of language. Todd and Kali introduce themselves through a sort of shared direct address, the text drifting between monologue and duologue as the perform­ ers speak directly to the audience, adding to, teasing, and correcting each other, and describing themselves and their relationship in the third person. They chat playfully and affectionately, employing turns of phrase and cultural references that feel full of the in-jokes of a cou­ ple who know each other intimately, as well as Lavery’s characteristic combination of colloquial and elevated registers. Talking about their forthcoming holiday to Stockholm, Todd describes himself (as ‘he’) waiting expectantly: It’s going to be Magic. He can’t wait. That cold, bright city. Magnetically pulling him… North. (Lavery 2007: 21)

The use of the third-person form allows the characters to present them­ selves to us as apparently stable, whole identities (as opposed to frac­ tured or flawed ones): in Lavery’s interpretation, the third person ‘feels shiny. It gives them a quiet confidence’ (in Citron 2012). Like the cou­ ple in Graham’s initiating story, or somebody undergoing Stockholm syndrome, Todd and Kali are seen to create their own story, one of success and domestic contentment. Right from these opening moments of the production, directly poetic expression is juxtaposed with references to popular culture such as the Mission Impossible films and stereotypes of Sweden, employing the names of IKEA furniture lines and the nonsense dialect of the Swedish I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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Chef character from The Muppet Show. Within minutes, too, we start to learn the history of their relationship as they tell us the story of ren­ ovating their house together, with sequences that start to interweave wide-ranging and expressive turns of phrase with equally exuberant physicality. They describe how the ‘pleiassic-jurassic sofa amid the qui­ etly looming mildewed debris’ was ‘with Proustian precision shagged on’ (Lavery 2007: 26) by them, then thrown away. The discussion of their redecoration of the house generates familiarity, comedy and an image of middle-class urban well-being. Very quickly we get a sense of their jointly-defined personalities. Physically, too, the couple move together in ways suggestive of the smooth intertwining of their lives and personalities. The first dance sequence between the pair is goofy and fun, employing lightly-executed steps evocative of classic films and light entertain­ ment such as Singin’ In the Rain (1952) or the soft-shoe shuffle routines of Laurel and Hardy or Morecambe and Wise. Performed hand-in­ hand, it is a relatively rare texture in Frantic’s movement vocabulary, though it contains echoes of DV8’s eclectic repurposing and parody of popular and ballroom dance. Todd and Kali return home with shop­ ping bags which we later see them unpack and sort in their kitchen, in what Lavery describes as an ‘Olympic Standard Unpack Team’ (2007: 34). Unlike the opening of Hymns, where the movement work was contact-based and derived from the offering, taking and sharing of each other’s weight, here the physicality is based on an instinctual spatial awareness and mutual understanding of where the other person will be. Fruit and veg are thrown over obstacles, blindly but accurately to each other, cupboards are opened and arms and legs are negotiated in an intricate choreography of the mundane. Whereas previous produc­ tions emphasised vigorous and extreme physicality, up to this point in Stockholm the company employs much more minimally effortful move­ ments, in what is nonetheless an aesthetically-pleasing and engaging series of early moments in the show. The beginning of the piece thus presents us with a couple seemingly happily sharing their lives – with each other and with us – with total honesty. Before they can even make it to the kitchen, we have witnessed an intimate sexual encounter between them. As Todd tells the audience about ‘the paint of the wall of the hall/Of the house that Love built’ (ibid.: 30), Kali pins him to that very wall and performs oral sex on him. He attempts to continue:

That’s ‘Harlequin Indulgence’

[the wallpaper]

That’s ‘Rich Praline’

[the paintwork] (ibid.: 30)

and so on, looking out and addressing the audience directly, to comic effect, and then shifting to lie back decorously on the staircase. As he comes close to climax, he narrates this to the audience with the rep­ etition of ‘He’s not alone’, culminating in a cry of ‘He’s alone!’. Just before this moment, Todd tells us of noticing something fluttering in the corner of his eye: a moth, with a marking like a skull on its wing, which lands on an unopened letter from Todd’s mother. In this impres­ sively compact piece of stagecraft, then, Frantic and Lavery have set in play a range of images to do with sex, intimacy, solitude, family, love, domesticity, humour and violence. Also control: Kali instigates the sex­ ual encounter by telling Todd she ‘won’t take [no] for an answer.’ Lavery says that ‘theatre pieces are always about at least three dis­ parate ideas coming together. […] in every scene, there should be at least three things happening… it is a very very good and hard rule to follow’ (Lavery 2011a; punctuation as in original). We can see this rule in action here, producing a succinct and energised theatrical form. The production arose from the mutually supportive commingling of Lav­ ery’s style – supplely moving between lyrical dialogue and inventive, evocative stage directions – with that of Frantic as they moved further and further from their earlier default pattern, identified by Steel, of dia­ logue scenes followed by movement interludes, followed by dialogue. As the play progresses, the narrative begins to slip out of Todd and Kali’s grasp as the character of ‘Us’, a vicious, sneering manifestation of the joint image of the couple, voiced and embodied by Lamb and James either separately or in unison, imposes itself. Also, in physical terms, more dangerous and violent imagery intrudes, tinged with playfulness but increasingly disturbing in its aggression. Todd is trying to cook them both a special meal, but Kali attempts to distract him, appealing to him to dance with her. He responds by lifting her onto the kitchen coun­ ter, placating her with a long kiss. They are arranged such that he is angled upstage, face unseen to the audience, and throughout the kiss he is motionlessly holding, outstretched behind his back and therefore in the audience’s foreground, a large, sharp kitchen knife. Todd holds Kali at one extreme of his reach, and the knife at the other. In this moment of hiatus is produced an image breathtakingly poised between sex and I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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danger: a doubly ambiguous image either of threat, or of holding threat at bay. But the moment, for now, passes; they conclude their embrace, and Todd goes back to his recipe. DESIGN, PHYSICALITY AND TEXT – BEAUTY AND THE BEASTS

The other key collaboration in the development of Stockholm also came about thanks to John Tiffany: Graham and Hoggett got to know the work of designer Laura Hopkins thanks to her previous roles on Tif­ fany’s Black Watch and Mercury Fur, both of which Hoggett had move­ ment directed. Like Lavery, Hopkins was a key presence from the beginning of the first workshop phase, and her work provides further textures to moments such as the one described above: as Todd reaches orgasm, flowers sprout from the seemingly solid wall, acting as a witty visual metaphor. Here, the image is one of beauty, playing within and alongside the danger and sexuality of the physicality and text. Thanks to the close incorporation of design ideas alongside the development of the script and movement of the production, these elements worked in union to create a rich fabric of meaning for the audience. Laura Hopkins (1963–) is an award-winning theatre designer whose eclectic range of work straddles avant-garde and mainstream produc­ tions of all scales and kinds. She has designed for operas, large musi­ cals, and for the English National Theatre and National Theatre of Scotland, as well as for devised and experimental work. She is an asso­ ciate artist with UK-based devising companies Imitating the Dog and Duckie collective, and collaborated with Frantic Assembly on Stockholm, Othello and Beautiful Burnout.

Before embarking on development work, the decision had already been made to set the piece entirely within the couple’s home. The questions of exactly how this setting would be used and how to represent it on stage were open, though, and Hopkins’ response to the first R&D phase was beyond the expectations of Graham and Hoggett. They had started to explore various possible domestic settings from the perspective of the dangers which might be present there:

The first Stockholm research and development session was so productive and threw up so many possibilities. Laura absorbed them all and then came back to us in the second research and development session with sketches for a design that would offer our entire wish-list and more. (Frantic Assembly 2012: 17)

The early moment of stagecraft in which flowers emerge from the walls is, if anything, a red herring for the audience, given that the house is at so many other points seen as a place of risk and betrayal. The design that Hopkins produced is dominated by a two-sided structure on a revolve, representing several rooms in the couple’s home, the setting for the entirety of the play’s day-long span. Again, the company emphasises the domestic, with the single space and time augmenting the claustrophobia which begins to impose itself around the edges of this apparently con­ tented relationship. The main locations are a sleek, gleaming kitchen, a staircase between the two floors, an office space with desk and lamp, and a bed suspended thrillingly high above stage level. The kitchen is the site of some of the most provocative and rich choreographic imagery, with a large Smeg fridge, a marble work surface upon which the couple dance and writhe at various moments, and a long row of gleamingly sharp knives hanging menacingly in the background. The set, like the two characters’ dialogue, speaks of the middle-class comfort in which this couple lives. This was perhaps one factor behind some reviewers’ finding the couple ‘smug’ (Logan 2008). But the choice to make these characters middle-class – albeit aiming at ‘aspirational’ rather than ‘smug’ – was a conscious one which hoped to steer away from what Graham and Hog­ gett categorised as ‘Nil by Mouth territory’ in reference to the 1997 Gary Oldman film (Hoggett in Graham et al. 2008). The violence depicted in that film is associated with the poverty, hardship, alcoholism and addictions of its central characters; Graham and Hoggett sought rather to depict the different forms of violence possible in an outwardly suc­ cessful relationship, where social or financial hardships do not offer a grounding for the couple’s turmoil. The design aims, in collaboration and counterpoint with the physicality and dialogue, to represent how the outward appearance of affluence and success of the couple masks to the outside world the tensions and neediness of the relationship, despite not because of their material conditions. Graham and Hoggett were more conscious than ever, in this process, of how they wished to divide up and balance the representational labour I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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of meaning-making. According to Graham, ‘theatre has a history of expressing love verbally’ (Graham in Graham et al. 2008). Challenging this, they set themselves the aim of creating a movement language which spoke of intimacy and love, saying to Lavery ‘we will make the beauty, and you create the beasts’ (ibid.). Design underpinned this intention, supporting both the delicate and the monstrous in the piece. When it came to rehearsing movement material for the final production, the company was keen to ensure that set elements such as the kitchen were in place from the outset so that the performers would be able to move around it as though they had long been living in that space. Thus a care­ fully considered approach to the role of set design also itself becomes a way of creating a sense of intimacy in the performances. The kitchen also reads as a site of risk, thanks to the row of knives arrayed across its back wall – implausibly numerous, and sharp. When Todd finally relents and breaks off from cooking to dance with Kali, this takes place with both of them standing on top of the kitchen counter. The lighting (designed by Andy Purves) isolates them on this platform, evoking the feeling of being alone on a dance floor, and the switch to Kali’s interrogation of Todd about ‘the blonde girl you were in the res­ taurant with’ (Lavery 2007: 40) when they first met is amplified by this isolation, and the chance of slipping from this height. Even greater height features at almost the very end of the play. When the couple finally find a moment of détente, after their climactic fight, they climb to the bed suspended above the rest of the set, surrounded again by flow­ ers and enveloped in love and forgiveness. Echoing the use of ladders in Hymns, the sheer height is thrilling and suggestive of emotional naked­ ness, though as Lavery’s stage direction suggests, ‘Even in their sleep, there is territory, negotiation and danger’ (2007: 68). Stockholm’s design, then, in close conjunction with its physicality and verbal text, enables the domestic setting to flicker between benign and violent. Perhaps the most memorable of these design-driven effects came about because Graham, Hoggett and Lavery wanted to include an incident in which the physical environment – a specific physical object in one of the rooms – is so threatening and dangerous to Kali that it actually attacks her. In the production, this was the ‘dangerous desk’, the surface of which was revealed to be made of water (rather than, as it had appeared, glass) and seemed to drag Kali into itself, rather than being reassuringly solid. This coup de théâtre, a visceral, visual solution to the psychological challenge, is credited to Hopkins: ‘It was a moment

Figure 3.3 Stockholm by Bryony Lavery (2007, Drum Theatre, Plymouth), di­ rected by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett. Performers: Samuel James and Georgina Lamb. Source: Photo by Scott Graham.

that we would never have come close to solving without the particular eye of and input from our designer’ (Frantic Assembly 2012: 17). In its unflinching imagery, on a knife-edge between violence and pas­ sion and set within seemingly well-to-do domestic confines, Stockholm evokes the brutality of a number of plays, dating back as far as Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879). Where Ibsen’s play considers the psycho­ logical warfare unthinkingly waged by husbands on their wives – captives in the gilded cages of wedlock – Frantic’s considers the interplay of violence and need within both parties in the relationship, deliberately emphasising Kali’s control and physicality at least as much as that of Todd. It helped having Georgina Lamb in the role, as what had drawn her to the company in the first place was their intense, challenging approach to physicality, which chimed with her own. Lamb sees the Frantic physicality, during their first decade, as ‘hard and fast’, a phi­ losophy she embraced: ‘I loved really exhausting my body to the point where I couldn’t get myself up off the floor’ (Lamb 2019). Her Kali is every bit the physical equal of James’ Todd. In the bruising fight which I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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erupts between the pair at the play’s climax, she tears at him, planting her feet wide and lifting and grappling with a ferocity it looks like Todd can only barely keep contained. Holds and stamps derived from the physicality of wrestling burst into the movement vocabulary of the piece at this point. Todd only manages to stave Kali off, and floor her, when she burns herself grabbing the pan that has been simmering on the hob. Here, the design again aids in the storytelling, and in creating ambiguity for the audience. When Todd gets Kali down for the count, after two minutes of brutal, wordless fight choreography, she crumples behind the central kitchen unit, her legs visible but her face out of view. For a split second, she might be unconscious, or worse. But she is soon up again, and the violence comes to an end. Kali comes to sit, hunched and distraught in front of the unit, cowering against it. She appears suddenly small and marooned with Todd, and he voices the heart of the image that inspired the piece: There is simply no way of telling anyone outside of this How attractive it is

true remorse (Lavery 2007: 66)

The flexibility of the design is such that, while presenting an ostensibly realist backdrop for the everyday and domestic, it allows for the isolation of the characters in ways to do with both their idealistic affection and their ugly aggression. The ‘closing of the door’ on the onlooker is not literal, but impressionistically conveyed through the huddling of the pair together in the aftermath of their violence, and their subsequent retreat to the bed. The interwoven patterns of love, suspicion, gameplaying and remorse that run through Stockholm suggest another particular theatrical prec­ edent, though it is nowhere near as physically gruelling a play: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Albee 1962). In this, George is an American college professor who, with his wife Martha, turns a dinner party into a psychological battlefield, performing a (metaphorical) dance of ‘truth or illusion’ in front of their guests, George’s younger colleague Nick and Nick’s partner Honey. The most painful territory covered between George and Martha is over the couple’s son, who turns out to be an invention of their torturous roleplaying and who is ‘killed off’ by George in his final crushing victory over Martha. The last intervention from ‘Us’ in Stockholm mirrors this: sharing the text, James and Lamb

emotionlessly deliver a stark monologue set ‘Eventually/In the future’ but narrated in present tense, describing the children they might have, and the gruesome deaths and injuries they might sustain. Just like the son in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, these fictional children are used as go-betweens for Todd and Kali. They are the children who make the newspaper story when he walks out […] and she calls him on his mobile and says ‘If you don’t come back I can’t go on living’ (Lavery 2007: 70)

The story told by ‘Us’ also ends with an image which may be read as the death of these children at their parents’ hands: they ‘drink the Ribena with the sleeping pills crushed up in it’ or are made ‘to phone him all that long last night…/As the car fills not with air’ (ibid.). All of George and Martha’s gameplaying and attacks are enacted through language, and amplified by their class- and occupation-based facility with the verbal (see Meyer 1968). Though the jobs of the charac­ ters in Stockholm are not revealed, Todd and Kali make similarly ostenta­ tious display of their cultural capital. Their semantic playfulness extends even beyond their employment of far-reaching English idiom, to an adoption of pseudo-foreign personas. Kali declares that she wants to be Swedish, leading to their roleplaying use of fake foreign language; previ­ ously she had ‘wanted to be French’ (Lavery 2007: 26) but had gone off the idea, and Todd also complains that he’s ‘losing all his fucking French now he doesn’t speak it any more…’ (ibid.: 41). These references build the image of a couple intensely in step, creative and enjoying each oth­ er’s ludic use of language. They might also imply Kali’s role in exerting control over these linguistic fields, and hence over the creation of their individual as well as their joint identities. However, the intention was to avoid the impression that this is a case of domestic abuse where one or the other individual is ultimately to blame; ‘our commitment was not to judge’ (Graham in Graham et al. 2008). As Lavery puts it – and as in the bruising back-and-forth of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – ‘the hostage-taker villain of the piece’ in these instances of Stockholm syn­ drome is not one member of the couple but ‘the perfect us’ (Lavery in Lane 2010: 95). I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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WRITING SILENCE

In creating Stockholm, Graham and Hoggett embarked upon R&D with a pool of creative individuals accustomed to collaborative practice, aiming for a fundamentally integrated approach to design, text and physicality, and with a loose, imagistic sense of the ideas they wished to explore. The prime motor for the development of the story was physi­ cal rather than verbal, and small and intimate rather than explosive and violent. The aim of the first R&D phase was, with a range of collab­ orators in the room, to examine ‘every aspect of relationships. It was very instinctual. It was all about tiny movements and looks between people’ (Graham in Graham et al. 2008). The production of the final text and design was supported by a number of experiments with phys­ ical material, many outlined in the resource pack which accompanied the production (Graham 2007), and in The Frantic Book (for example, Graham and Hoggett 2014: 32–9). In the first R&D sessions, Lavery didn’t write, ‘she just sat there and cried when it felt good’ (Graham 2008). Lavery would identify moments that she didn’t need to write, that would be best expressed through the movement vocabulary they were evolving, seeing physicality, text and design all as part of the same theatrical language. This is by no means unique to her collaboration with Frantic Assem­ bly. Writing about her 2001 adaptation of Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop for Shared Experience, Lavery addresses the would-be theatri­ cal adapter and contrasts their task with that of the novel’s author: Remember, You Are Not Alone. She [Carter] just had some paper and a type­ writer… You have some wonderful, physically-adept, smart, bright actors… a clever director, an imaginative designer… music, lights… The Magic Of Theatre! (Shared Experience 2001: 8)

As this indicates, Lavery is a visually-engaged writer who, moreover, is keen to stress the intelligence and ‘physically-adept’ nature of the actor. Her writing is infused with the experience of acting and directing, just as Graham and Hoggett’s experience of directing is infused with the experience of performing and generating text. For Frantic, working with someone who could ‘write for theatrical possibilities’ was ‘utterly inspirational’ (Graham 2011a), and here again Graham conceives of Lavery’s contributions as providing not only text but ‘space within the text’: she

could see the power of silence, or the power of movement and how it had a place alongside her words, and how she could actually write those moments, as space within the text or somehow capturing it poetically through her stage directions. (ibid.)

For instance, the concept of having the couple in Stockholm ‘eat each other’ with knives and forks was explored in a movement exercise very early on in the process. A videotape recorded during this first R&D in December 2006 shows the two female performers playing with knives and forks while leaning across a table, sliding the cutlery across each other’s body and face. The male performers are then videoed doing like­ wise. The stage directions in the final script record this section as follows: They start to drink one another They start to cut each other up and eat each other… And pour each other and drink each other They savour and devour each other (Lavery 2007: 37)

Figure 3.4 Stockholm by Bryony Lavery (2007, Drum Theatre, Plymouth), directed by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett. Performers: Samuel James and Georgina Lamb. Source: Photo by Scott Graham. I D E AS I N P R O D U C T I O N

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Many such physical conceits and actual movements explored in the first development phase survived more or less intact in the final production and the published script. Graham says of Lavery’s directions: ‘if you look at the scripts for Stockholm or Beautiful Burnout, ninety percent of those stage directions are actually about our work’ (Graham 2011a). The use of the knives and forks in Stockholm was a key choreographic image which served as a strong – and wordless – metaphor for the ebb and flow of control, violence and sexuality which underlies the whole of the piece. It appeared in almost full form at the outset of the team’s work together. Crucially, the Stockholm process led Graham and Hog­ gett to feel their role in working with new writing should not be pro­ viding inspiration for the writer to write a play that Frantic would subsequently stage, but setting up the structure for a combined, col­ laborative endeavour: what Lavery saw in their process was ‘inspira­ tion for us to make a show’ (Graham 2008). Reviews of the production praised the text for the way it ‘wastes not a word and yet manages some lovely poetry’ (Mountford 2008), the physicality for its ‘intoxicating [and] amazing momentum’ (Shenton 2008), and the ‘sleek’ (Logan 2008) and ‘ingeniously lit’ (Hutera 2007) design. While some, as iden­ tified above, referred to the ‘smugness’ of the show’s central couple (Hutera 2007; Logan 2008), most considered this a deliberate choice, and found the balance of beauty and ugliness much better judged than in the less well-received pool (no water). Long-standing advocate of the company’s work Lyn Gardner summed up the way the play’s various elements came together more satisfyingly than in any previous Frantic work: ‘script, design and lighting, soundtrack and choreography con­ join in one lethal embrace’ (Gardner 2007). CONCLUSION: FROM FRIENDSHIP TO FAMILY

Both Hymns and Stockholm mark key developments in Frantic’s approach to new writing, physicality and design; both are held up by Graham and Hoggett as having been particularly satisfying collaborative processes; and both are key productions in the company’s evolving thematics of intimacy and relationships. In the development from the earlier to the later play, too, can be traced the way that this focus has shifted and broadened over time. Hymns, as we have seen, examined the dynam­ ics of a group of (male) friends teetering between adolescent rituals

and the demands of adulthood, as the company’s directors moved away from their university years (and city) into their late twenties and early thirties, and to London. Stockholm, on the other hand, takes a romantic relationship as its core, and examines the challenges, risks and pleasures of this kind of long-term partnership. As the company moved into the 2010s, their focus shifted further, to look closely at the intricate ties of family, bringing a more diverse age range of characters (and actors) into the orbit of their work. More recently, in The Believers, Things I Know To Be True and Fatherland, Graham has looked yet more directly at the dynamic of the family, doubtless inflected by his own new life experiences, as he now has a wife and children of his own. As Graham and Hoggett have aged, their movement work has not necessarily sof­ tened, but they have developed a keener interest in stillness (as exam­ ined in Chapter 2). Moreover, the physical devising techniques they had developed with Liam Steel and a range of other choreographers and directors, from the very earliest phases of their work, have always been predicated on the principle of starting from whatever movement each individual is capable of within the parameters defined by the task. The directors would push this further with each rehearsal, but ‘never teach choreography from the front of the room’ (Graham and Hog­ gett 2014: 16), and this inside-out approach makes the generation of dynamic physical material possible for performers of all ages, physiques and levels of agility, as our final chapter will document.

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4 P R AC T I C AL W ORK A Frantic Assembly workshop

THE CONTEXT

Since the company was founded, workshops, residencies and training programmes have been an integral part of Frantic Assembly’s work (see Chapter 2). The company has established an enviable reputation for high-quality and accessible learning and training provision, with activities happening across the world and throughout the United King­ dom. Through their workshops and residencies in schools, colleges and universities; the MA in Collaborative Theatre Making they ran with Coventry University (2016–2019); the sessions that they regularly run for teachers; and their annual Ignition programmes for young men and women, Frantic’s approach to devising physical theatre has become well-established and very popular across a wide range of education levels. The diversity of Frantic’s learning and training work means that trying to construct a quintessential Frantic workshop has little or no relevance or meaning, and would run the risk of just describing exer­ cises that are already very well-known and well-documented (e.g. Push Hands, Round/By/Through, Chair Duets). This chapter, instead, gives the reader the opportunity to consider the delivery of an actual Frantic Assembly workshop and to review how the practice connects with the company’s history, its ways of working, its productions, and

resources such as The Frantic Book and videos. The chapter is based on a description of the first day of the Frantic Assembly Advanced Training Workshops, which took place at Cecil Sharp House, London, on Mon­ day 18th November 2019. This workshop session was led by Frantic Assembly Associate Director Simon Pittman (www.franticassembly. co.uk/profile/simon-pittman-1) and Frantic Practitioner Gavin Max­ well (www.franticassembly.co.uk/profile/gavin-maxwell), and involved 18 participants, all with previous experience of working profession­ ally in the theatre industry. The observed sessions were the first day of a series of workshops which together comprised a four-day expe­ rience that culminated in a performance for an invited audience. The Frantic Assembly marketing material describes the aims of the residency as: to work closely with the Associate Director to develop and build a Frantic Assembly-inspired performance; to create complex chore­ ography through simple beginnings; to find depth in movement, learn what movement can say and how to test its potential; to understand text and movement; and, to explore when to move, when to talk and how and when to do both. These workshop aims could also be seen as a distillation of the overall approach of the company. The workshop that is described below ran from 10:00 to 17:00, with several com­ fort breaks and an hour-long lunch break. Although the workshop is described as ‘Advanced Training’ and aimed at artists with experience in theatre-making, it is important to remember that for Frantic, ‘we don’t believe that it is necessarily the exercise that is “advanced” but how you apply it and who you apply it to’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 6). This workshop contains some seemingly very simple exercises as well as more complex work – all of which served to enable the group ‘to access new movement and see things in new ways’ (ibid.). As Gra­ ham and Hoggett point out, the process for each exercise remains the same, whatever the experience level of the participants. This chapter offers a description of a Frantic workshop, supplemented with commentary, suggestions for developments, and guidance on how to explore these exercises yourself, within your own theatre-making context. It is written from the perspective of a workshop leader. If you do use these exercises, depending on the level you are working at, the results may be different (and not necessarily better or worse), but the process will always be about opening up possibilities for those who take part: ‘The moves come from what the performers find they are capable of through the specific tasks set’ (ibid.: 16). Frantic workshops PRACTICAL WORK

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are not designed to replicate or recreate Frantic shows – the results that come out of the workshop exercises that you explore will be, and should be, your own. Describing workshop practice is very difficult – the rich physical, mental and emotional challenges of a physical theatre workshop are impossible to capture fully in words. As with any other theatre practi­ tioner in this series, there is no substitute for the experience of under­ taking these exercises in a workshop led by the practitioners themselves, or by experts in their work. Full details of all Frantic Assembly’s work­ shop, residency and training programmes can be found on their website (www.franticassembly.co.uk/learn-and-train) or by contacting their office. Therefore, this chapter is not intended simply as an off-the-shelf workshop plan for you to work your way through – though you could of course do that if you wished. Nor is it a condensed version of Frantic’s practice. It is an opportunity to read about the details of an actual work­ shop, alongside reflections on why certain choices were made, what the underlying principles supporting this work are, and where such work might lead or how it might be further developed. The best workshop practice involves constant reflection on what works for those participat­ ing and those leading, and why, and on the inter-relationship between your group practice, your ethos and your aims. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

Throughout the day, the workshop leaders for this session returned to certain key principles that they identified as underpinning all the work during the residency. This helped to keep focus within the workshop on what matters (within both the context of the workshop and the broader company ethos). The exercises were never left in isolation, but always situated in relation to the way the company works and to the exercises that had gone before. Key principles informing the Frantic approach to workshops and res­ idencies were identified as: •

Enable people to explore some of the skills, approaches and strategies that Frantic use, and in particular to understand the concepts behind the build­ ing blocks process. At the heart of Frantic’s workshops is a principle of transparency and the sharing of process. The workshop leaders for

•

•

•

•

this session would often point out how the tasks being set related to this over-arching approach. The gradual layering of activities focuses participants on the task at hand and avoids what Frantic refer to as ‘end-gaming’. (End-gaming is the term they use for trying to pre-guess what a desired outcome might be. There is more about end-gaming in the Frantic Assembly Online Teachers’ CPD Resource packs, available via the company’s website.) This layering also allows your collaborators and the process to surprise you with new ideas and new perspectives. Building blocks are a key concept for Frantic, and are ‘[a]t the heart of how we disseminate our creative devising processes’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 9) – in particular they offer participants an opportunity for personal creative input. For more detail see ibid.: 15–16 and Chapter 2 in this volume, where the principles of ‘building blocks’ are explained in detail. Finding markers for measuring improvement, setting standards and creating the right atmosphere. Improvements might just be small – one extra press-up in a warm-up – but are important to help build confi­ dence (Graham and Hoggett 2009: 97). It doesn’t matter where you or your group are starting from, it matters that you decide to make progress from there. A little bit of competition (even for each person with themselves) can be motivational. Everyone has a joint responsibility to help everyone else achieve their best. Participants should not be afraid to be themselves – they don’t have to be what­ ever they presuppose a physical theatre performer to be. A-text/B-text as a director or facilitator: enabling collaboration through what is said and what is not. Workshop leaders sometimes have to think about what information might be withheld. Sometimes leav­ ing space for variety and accidental changes can offer up surprises and new possibilities that may be of interest. If participants don’t know what to do next, then they might try to go with it and find a safe way through for themselves, but it is equally valid and impor­ tant sometimes for them to ask, if they don’t know. Conditioning to build strong performers. The importance of warming up. Awareness. Never ignore the importance of building physical com­ petences and of preparing for physical work. As you build physical condition and readiness, you should also build mental and sensory awareness – both are important. Contact work and ways in. Finding ways to start through points of contact between bodies and movement. PRACTICAL WORK

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•

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Building sequences based on a simple starting concept or task. Specific qual­ ities of the work and how to find them. Building work from starting concepts that invite and encourage the development of specific qualities within the work. Asking why. Two key ideas at the heart of Frantic’s working method are the question of what makes a good starting concept or task, and how to build and layer material from the initial tasks. The Frantic work­ shop leaders talk all the time, and invite group discussion throughout the day about what it is that might be worth looking for, what is work­ ing well and what is not, where the important challenges lie. There is never any issue with a participant asking ‘why’ to any aspect of an exercise – this is actually part of the way that exercises are developed and expanded. Asking ‘why’ applies to many contexts, often to do with the possible ways of reading and interpreting meaning. Economy of movement. Effortlessness. This is predominantly about explor­ ing the most effective approach to physical challenges. Finding the most efficient and effective way of doing a task can help make it look effortless. It is also important to think just about doing the task, and doing it well. There is value, for instance, in doing exer­ cises very slowly, because it helps detect where people are taking short-cuts or putting too much effort in because their technique is not yet correct. Meaning and how to seek it. Throughout the workshop, the leaders resist the participants’ impulses to ‘make sense’ of the work by giving it a particular narrative or emotional colour. This repeats the emphasis on avoiding end-gaming, and returns the participant to a focus on just doing the task as well as they can. Both the people performing at any time, and the participants who are watching will be asked to question what they are reading in the work and how they are reading it. The group may also be repeatedly reminded and questioned about the presumptions underpinning their work – how fast or slow it could be, where it could be taking place (what sort of space, indoors or outside, what size), who is doing it, where is the audience to be situated, is this a group or a solo part of the performance work, etc. In addition, don’t ignore accidents and mistakes – allow ‘even the most random event to shape and alter an exercise’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 20). At heart, this is about looking for ‘new ways to see the world and new ways of telling the world what you think about it’ (ibid.: 13).

•

Music and how we can use it. Music is almost constantly present in a Frantic Assembly working space. The workshop leaders try to select music that never has too strong an emphasis on the lyrics (in order to avoid participants from simply responding to the lyrical content of the tracks). Music is used variously to set atmosphere in the room, to soundtrack any performance work, or to focus or energise the room.

The basic components of a Frantic workshop can be understood as: warm-up; train (skills development); identify and work from start­ ing concept(s); build from the starting concept to create sequences; play with the sequences (try variations and developments); explore the potential for use with text, for devising and for performance. The sequence of exercises is then typically punctuated by the regular shar­ ing of work. These sharings help to: keep the work grounded, pulling up end-gaming or pretentiousness before it gets too established; avoid participants becoming seduced by generalised attitudes or emotions; accustom everyone to performing; maintain confidence in saying what you think and commenting on the work of others; and bring any indi­ vidual work back into the context of the group and the topic or theme being explored. ‘The practice of sharing [is] critical to the working dynamic’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 16). You may wish to reflect on the alignment between the key princi­ ples outlined above and the key ideas informing the company’s work as discussed in Chapter 2. How is collaboration embedded into practice, how do elements such as touch and music operate within the work­ shop environment, and how might differences of culture, gender or sexuality relate to the way work is made? Before beginning your own practical explorations, what might you identify as your own key princi­ ples? Don’t forget to reflect after any workshop on how effectively your work aligned to those principles, and on what changes you might make after reflection and feedback. BEFORE BEGINNING ATTITUDE

Trust is important for this kind of work to be effective. Participants need to trust in each other – to be alert to each other’s presence, to pay PRACTICAL WORK

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attention to the work being done, to critique the work with consider­ ation and without prejudice or bias. When leading this kind of work, the same rules apply: be fair, pay attention to what everyone is doing, critique the work and not the person, be aware of the whole group and all the space. The Advanced Training workshop started with each of the participants introducing themselves to the group and explaining why they were interested in taking part. This stage allows for both vulnera­ bility and excitement to be expressed and shared, and for the workshop leaders to get a sense of the motives of those taking part. The workshop leaders emphasised the importance of openness and a willingness to enter into experimental spaces during the workshop. It was also made clear that watching what others do is as important and as valuable as doing the work yourself. As with the workshop session observed, participants may be from a range of different backgrounds. Some may be actors, some dancers, and some neither; everyone can find a way into Frantic workshop exer­ cises. Be ready to recognise that all these differences (experience, gen­ der, ethnicity, age, dis/ability) will add richness to the work and will bring challenges that aren’t necessarily expected. Dancers, for instance, may bring physical confidence and a readiness to explore how to make movement sequences work, but may default to what Frantic refer to as ‘Dance Face’ (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 42). Actors, on the other hand, may want to speed through technical aspects towards what they see as the emotional heart of the work. Also, be aware that partici­ pants may be more or less used to or comfortable with physical contact depending on their age, gender, disability status and cultural heritage. Be clear about what the workshop will involve, and let participants know that it is OK to let you know about how they feel. Think about what and how people learn from observing. Does mak­ ing notes or sketches help this process? How is observing different from taking part – what is the change in the nature and quality of experience? Can observing be a form of activity, and if so, what needs to change in the observer? If you are leading a workshop, how do you encourage active watching by the participants? AWARENESS

This kind of physical work requires participants to be alert to what is happening in their own bodies and in the space around them. Make sure

that everyone is ready to work – not tired, distracted or inattentive. Knowing where you are in the room, and where other people are in the room, requires good peripheral vision and spatial awareness. Some of the exercises will help develop this, but vigilance and awareness are always important. Remind participants not to ‘switch off’ when doing exercises and tasks. Physical work should never just become repetition (unless you are simply interested in fitness and strength). Repetition can dull aware­ ness, making movement into drill. This is why much of Frantic’s work focuses on pair, small-group and large-group work, and why Frantic workshop leaders will introduce small changes and challenges that keep participants engaged in what they are doing. If the work that a group is undertaking carries specific risks of injury or harm, consider what actions will be needed to mitigate such risks (see notes on workshop environment below) or to protect participants in the longer term (is insurance required or already in place?). ENVIRONMENT

If you are undertaking physical work, then it is very important to work in a space that will support safe practice. This means ensuring that the space is reasonably sound-proof, warm enough to work in (muscles do not like cold draughts), that ventilation is good (sweat needs to evap­ orate and go somewhere), and that the floor you will be working on is clean, splinter-free, and preferably a sprung wooden floor. A sprung floor has a small amount of bounce and give in it – this prevents jarring of bones and joints when jumping or landing. You will soon recognise the difference if you compare a sprung wooden floor with a hard, con­ crete floor. Try to ensure that the room you are using is of a size and height to allow for physical work – is there room for all the people in the group to run around and not collide with each other? Can people be lifted without getting too close to the ceiling? Participants and workshop leaders should wear clothes that are com­ fortable to move in, but not so baggy or loose that they may snag, trip or impede your movement. It is also best to avoid wearing jewellery that may snag or get damaged. If shoes are permitted in the space, then trainers or something similar will help with a good grip on the floor surface when needed; otherwise bare feet are preferable to working in socks. Good lighting will help ensure that everyone is aware of where PRACTICAL WORK

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everyone else is in the space – stage lighting is not required, and can generate more heat than is pleasant to work in, but is a useful option to have available when it comes to sharing work. Participants should be open and honest about any injuries or other restrictions or conditions that might affect their work. Make sure that there is no expectation of, or desire for, individual virtuosic physical performance. The aim is to make work with the people in the room in a collaborative and ensemble spirit (see key principles section above). Music was present almost all the way through the Advanced Training workshop, and was clearly intended as a collaborative element in the work. It will be useful to have access to good quality music playback facilities and a selection of tracks to use during your workshop. There is advice about the use of music in The Frantic Book (Graham and Hog­ gett 2014: 26–32). You can also find information on the playlists they have used in past productions both in the book (ibid.: 217–19) and on the Frantic Assembly website. Music can be used to set the rehearsal/ devising environment, to inspire or challenge how a sequence of material might be performed, or to provide rhythmic or atmospheric structure for improvisation work. Frantic tend to like music that has ‘an implicit sense of drama’ (ibid.: 28) – by which they mean not musical histrion­ ics, but rather the sense within the music of something personal and intimate happening for the listener. Music that is too ambient and vague may do nothing more than provide a beat, and not actually contribute to the creative process at all. Good music is a great shorthand to cre­ ating mood and provoking movement. Just as Frantic shows often start with a pre-show that involves distinctive music as a way of announcing that what you are about to see is something different, so music playing before and during a workshop can establish something of the ethos of the work. Remember that lyrics can prove to be a distraction – they can influence or dictate emotional or narrative content of the work that is being made in obvious or clichéd ways. Don’t be self-conscious or precious about your choice of music – treat it like a collaborator. Be aware that some tracks may work well, others not. Don’t be afraid to change tracks, and avoid getting lulled into easy choices or over-reliance on music. Make sure that participants have water available. Physical work will mean regular water stops are important to maintain hydration levels.

Equally, regular water breaks will also mean regular comfort breaks to use the toilet! Some moments for breaks are suggested within the work­ shop description below, but in choosing when to pause work, be alert to the needs of the group and the importance of sustaining energy and focus within the space. Remember, it is important to consider how the group starts again after a break (even a short break for water). As they start again, encourage them to be alert to how the work, energy levels and focus may have changed. PHYSICAL PREPARATION

Frantic’s workshops are intentionally very physical, and workshop par­ ticipants are taken through a series of exercises which aim to build their confidence and physical preparation for work through an escalation of difficulty and intensity. A clear aim throughout the workshops is to encourage participants, within the boundaries of what is physically safe for each individual, to achieve at least a little more than they might think they can achieve at each point, and where possible considerably more. This is in itself a part of the physical preparation process, encouraging the participants not to settle for what they feel comfortable with, and to challenge themselves to make small improvements throughout the work. It is also part of the mental preparation process, as participants grow in confidence in their own abilities, realise the benefits of col­ laboration and trust, and focus their attention primarily on the task at hand. The work ethic is about pushing yourself, but also taking care of yourself and your body. Encourage participants to challenge what they think they can do (and indeed with whom, where, and how they can do it) – this is also an important part of the ways in which Frantic’s work challenges assumptions about cultural difference (gender, race, age, body shape and dis/ability – see Chapter 2). Almost everyone who has undertaken some kind of theatre training will have built up their own set of warm-up routines. These will gener­ ally include combinations of stretching exercises, with others that invig­ orate and energise the muscles, loosen the joints, increase blood flow, engage coordination, and focus attention on the body and its orientation in space. A good warm-up should aim to achieve a systematic mobilisa­ tion of the body, from feet to head. The Advanced Training workshop included the following. PRACTICAL WORK

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EXERCISE 4.1: WARM-UP

• • • • • • •

• •

Flex the ankle joint – roll the foot around on the floor to loosen the ankle. Circle the knee – engages the knee, but also loosens up the hip joint. Crouch on all fours and then twist torso to raise one arm up to ceiling (Figure 4.1). Crouch and then walk hands back to come up to standing, rolling through the spine. Hip circles – make a figure of eight with your hips. Place hands on hips and move torso back, centre and forward, then right, centre and left, and then circle the hips. Circle just the shoulders, then circle with the elbows as well. Add a gentle bounce in the knees as the elbows rise up. Next, let the whole arm swing. To finish this sequence, bring the arms up; stretch up with arms, going up on your toes; leave arms up and lower heels to floor. Clasp your hands behind your head, let the weight of your arms stretch your head down towards the floor. Breathe. Relax and sof­ ten any tensions in the body. Sun salute. Stretch up with arms, then reach down with hands to the floor. Straighten knees and walk hands out so that your shoul­ ders are over your hands. Hold, then lower yourself to the floor. Lift your head up as you straighten your arms, leaving your hips on the floor. Lower down again, and push your hips up towards the ceiling, walking your hands back towards your feet to come back to standing. Walk or jog around the space for four counts, then do the sun salute movements to counts of four.

You may choose to use this list, augment it, or create your own. Make sure that whatever you do, all major muscle groups and joints are warmed up and that the warm-ups, as well as the way that they are introduced and led, are informed by the key principles you have identified. Warming up is not just something that is needed at an individual level. Group warm-ups not only warm up each performer, they also invigorate the participants as a group, building awareness of each other in space, ‘owning’, ‘claiming’ or ‘animating’ the space (creating the sense that this is the group’s space now – they know it and are comfortable

Figure 4.1 Group warm-up – stretching. Left to right: Emma Rowbotham, Beth Morton and Will Townsend. Source: Photo by Mark Evans.

in it – and that the space is energised), encouraging trust and collabora­ tion, increasing general energy levels, and enabling each performer to match their own level of energy to that of the group. PRACTICAL WORK

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EXERCISE 4.2: CATCHING THE BALL

• • • • • •

Split the group in two. Make two lines: the first person in one line faces the first person in the other, with the rest of each half-group lining up behind them. One of the people at the front throws a tennis ball to the person facing them, before running around to the back of their line. The person who now has the ball throws it back to the next person in the opposite line, and so on (Figure 4.2). Don’t throw to catch the other person out – the aim is to create fluid and efficient movement. Gradually build up the speed and flow of the exercise. Add a variation: each person places a hand on the shoulder of the per­ son in front of them in their line, generating a sense of group contact and enabling confidence in touch to develop in a non-threatening way. Leaders can check to make sure that bodies are soft, responsive and not tensing up. Tension inhibits fluid movement and is more likely to lead to injuries.

Figure 4.2 Group warm-up – catching the ball, two lines. Left to right: Beth Mor­ ton, Ali Azhar, Alice May Eadson, Phoebe Hyder, Natasha Baiguer­ ra, William Townsend, Simon Pittman, Jennifer Faletto, Davide Vox. Source: Photo by Mark Evans.

EXERCISE 4.3: CONTROLLING THE BALL

•

•

•

Mark out a small square space on the floor with some tape. Now each group member concentrates on throwing the ball upwards so that it always remains within that block of ‘airspace’ above the square – the two lines of participants will have to move a little closer together. Work on the smoothness of the movement of the ball – can it look like the ball is just moving rhythmically up and down? Then explore how small the ball’s movement can be, so it never goes above shoul­ der height. Then try bouncing the ball on the floor rather than throwing it up. Again, the group should keep the focus on the soft­ ness and economy of the movement involved, working on the right effort to set the ball up for the next person. How small does the bounce of the ball need to be? Physicality can be about detail – it doesn’t have to be intense or extreme all the time. A further variation would be to divide the group into four lines, each facing in towards the central square to make a cross shape. They should now try to keep the ball bouncing in the square as the front person in each line takes it in turns to bounce it before running to the end of their line. Each variation is about finding out what is possible, not getting the exercise right or doing it perfectly.

Stepping up a gear at each stage means that participants are increas­ ingly required to commit to the experience of the tasks, and not sit back and intellectualise. A sense of the need to keep up with the workshop can be helpful – it keeps people on their toes and echoes the way that Frantic productions seek to throw the audience into the unexpected quite early on (see Graham and Hoggett 2014: 17–19, on the pre-show). This may be a good moment to stop, take a water break, and discuss what has been developed through the work so far, at both individual and group level. How are levels of awareness and economy changed, and how does the work so far relate to Frantic’s list of key principles? However, there is also value in pushing on and keeping the energy and creativity going – too much talk can derail the work. This is a call that workshop leaders need to make in response to the nature and needs of the group. PRACTICAL WORK

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EXERCISE 4.4: NAME CIRCLE

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• • •

•

Form a circle with the group, as wide as possible in the space. Start­ ing from the leader in the circle, each say your name going around in one direction. Leave a two-second gap between each name. Watch out for the tendency to speed up – start again if this happens and reiterate the need for the two-second gap. Then repeat, but this time each person says their name immediately after the person before them. Be aware that increasing the rhythm and/or speed can make people rush saying their name. Next each person starts saying their name before the previous per­ son has finished saying theirs. Finally, get one person to start walking across the circle towards another member of the group. Before they arrive, the person they are walking towards needs to say the name of the person who is walking towards them, and then start walking towards another person in the circle. If someone doesn’t know a name they can ask – it’s not a competition (although this exercise does help participants learn names if they don’t already know each other). Once everyone is used to the exercise, speed it up: walk fast, and then jog. Perhaps try two people crossing the circle at the same time if the group is large enough. You can even try the same exercise but with numbers (from one to the size of the group) instead of names, or with just saying ‘go’ instead of names. Focus on eye contact – it helps humanise the exercise and make it playful (see Graham and Hoggett 2014: 132–4 for details of this exercise and additional variations).

GROUP EXERCISES

At a certain point, the focus of any workshop has to change from sim­ ply warming up towards more focused activity. For Frantic, this is not necessarily a simple and clearly identifiable moment. Instead the work evolves, gradually developing in complexity and allowing for more lay­ ering and for the introduction of individual creativity within the task(s). This is a process that matches their early days of making work, with warming-up, talking, creating material, devising and writing material often blending interchangeably. The advantage of this approach is that

there is not a moment at which participants become aware, realise or assume that ‘warming up’ has finished and ‘being creative’ has started. As a result, they do not shift in a self-conscious way into some kind of pre-conceived devising or performance mode. The preparation for each next stage is inherent in the previous exercises. Gradually the partici­ pants’ bodies become used to the ways in which exercises function. The principles for efficient and safe movement are embedded in the work, and become part of the way that everyone engages with the movement exercises. EXERCISE 4.5: SLALOM

A version of this exercise is described in detail in The Frantic Book (Gra­ ham and Hoggett 2014: 121). The exercise develops group awareness and spatial awareness, and gives opportunities to reinforce some of the key principles. •

•

• • •

Line up the group along one wall and make a rectangle or square with four chairs (or other objects). Chairs 1 and 2 are near to the lined-up group, chairs 3 and 4 further away. The chairs all face the same direction. Each member of the group runs to each chair (1, 2, 3, 4) then back to the end of the group line, tracing a ‘Z’ shape across the space. Run one person through at a time, and then in canon and avoiding the previous and next person as they do so. Pass each chair or object by running past it and then turning back and inwards to go around it (Figure 4.3). Look for economy of movement – how few steps does it take to execute the turns, for example? Observe the moments of suspen­ sion and the moments when you connect with each other. If problems arise, don’t be afraid to stop and work out how to do the exercise more effectively. Try taking the chairs or objects away.

Consider what additional variations you might want to explore once the exercise is working well. A key development is to have each person setting off earlier and earlier in the sequence, so that more people are in the space at the same time. Think about what other changes might be made: the speed at which participants run, the positions of objects PRACTICAL WORK

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Figure 4.3 Slalom exercise – running around the chairs. Route runs from (in the image) furthest chair, to right-most chair, to left, to nearest, to right again. Left to right: Gemma Maddock, Simon Pittman, Gavin Maxwell, Alice May Eadson, Emma Rowbotham, Natasha Baiguer­ ra, Ali Azhar, Bonnie Adair, Jennifer Faletto, Victoria Ocusanya, Beth Morton, Katherine Bristow, Will Townsend, Andrew McCrack­ en, Hayley McFadyen, Davide Vox. Source: Photo by Mark Evans.

within the space (how close or far apart, where in the space are they), the number and nature of objects in the space, the nature of each ‘turn­ ing point’, moments of suspension, moments of connection, the intro­ duction of words, the use of music. The more complex you make it, the more you can test ‘the response time of a group operating at speed’ (ibid.: 121). PARTNER WORK

Partner work occurs throughout Frantic’s working processes. The pair is a simple unit for devising and enables the layering of work in multiple

ways. Pair work can later be opened out for others to join in, adapt or complement what has already been created – but it can also be the heart of a show (as in Stockholm – see Chapter 3 – and, in various combina­ tions between four actors, Lovesong). Partner work can start from a wide range of concepts: trust, touch, avoidance, balance, placing, catching, lifting. In the example below, it starts with leading a partner through the space. In general, it is useful to pair people up with someone who is roughly the same size – but this should not be a hard-and-fast rule, especially if the work will not require lifting or balancing. There should be no other preconceptions about who should work with whom, and any assump­ tions around gender, race, age and dis/ability should be challenged in supportive and encouraging ways. Leaders do, however, need to be aware that touching and lifting are areas of sensitivity for participants – it is wise to prepare for how to deal with such issues if they arise. It is also good to change partners at appropriate points during the work. This helps avoid pairs becoming too reliant on each other, and mitigates against friends only working with friends. Establish the general princi­ ple that everyone can (and should) work with everyone else. EXERCISE 4.6: PUSH HANDS

This is Frantic’s version of a well-established trust exercise – you can read about it in The Frantic Book (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 106) and it is also demonstrated in the National Theatre video available online (National Theatre 2015b). It is a very useful exercise for encouraging participants to pay attention to physical and non-verbal signals between each other, and for encouraging them to allow their movement to be dictated in part by an external stimulus. •

•

The group should be split into pairs (and one group of three if nec­ essary). One person in each pair should place the palm of their hand underneath the palm of their partner, so one person’s hand is on top of the other’s. The hand underneath exerts a firm pressure upwards – not too firm, but not too soft. The contact has to be clear but not oppressive. The partner whose hand is on top is in control. Using the gentle pres­ sure of the contact, move the other person where they are standing, exploring the point at which they have to take a step or move. Then PRACTICAL WORK

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move them around in the space (taking care not to bump into other pairs), leading them only by the pressure on their hand. Remind participants to avoid ‘dancing’ or trying to make their movement aesthetically pleasing – they should just move as their partner guides them, using only as much movement of their body as is necessary. It is not about trying to catch a partner out. Pairs should work at building the connection between them and exploring what is possi­ ble. But do challenge them as they grow in confidence. Make sure that participants are really letting themselves be led. Ask them to confront the temptation to follow the movement of their hand but still control the movement of the rest of their body themselves. If there is a group of three, then it may work best if one person leads the other two. It is important to work without talking, and try to make as little noise as possible. The focus of the group’s attention should be on listening to the touch – this is an important aspect of this exercise. Remind them to breathe! After a while, swap leaders. Then try with the person being led clos­ ing their eyes – how does that change the quality of the movement?

Be aware that this is not a trust exercise per se, it is about the quality of the group’s ability to listen and respond through touch; listening, in this sense, is identified as one of the central principles of Frantic’s work (Graham 2005: 17). In addition, it requires participants to change the quality of their movement as they respond to the movements of another, and to explore how much or how little movement is needed to maintain the contact. Take time to discuss whether it is easier with eyes open or shut, and why. There is no right or wrong way, but it is worth considering how experience of the body changes and whether the imagination engages in a different way. For examples, how does the experience of touch change in relation to the removal of sight? When someone’s eyes are shut, do they feel that they can allow themselves to move through the space in different ways? Developments To add another layer, ask participants to lead a partner by making con­ tact with other parts of the body (back, legs, arms, head). Explore how

and when to move hands and point of contact. Vary the speed at which partners are moved – fast or slow. How slow can they go? Focus the pairs on being specific with the instructions given through touch. Clarity helps with confidence – and remember that the exercise is about pairs listening to each other through touch, not about making ‘cool moves’. Ask the pairs to change the point of contact without stopping, moving smoothly from hand, to foot, to back and changing the leader’s hand without slowing down or stopping the movement of both partners. Ask leaders within each pair to swap and lead a different partner as smoothly as possible (with no break in the flow of the movement). When you stop the pairs, get them to shake out and take a moment to decompress and come out of that world. Discuss the experience, noting what worked and how their movement changed. ‘Push Hands’ can also work as a lead into exercises such as ‘Marcia Takedown’ (see Graham and Hoggett 2014: 107–10), in which leading and responding to others through touch is an integral element. In addi­ tion, the emphasis on trust, touch and non-verbal communication can feed into other exercises such as ‘Hymns Hands’ (www.youtube.com/ watch?v=gUqZPfGIX6U, from 5 min 47 s) and ‘Chair Duets’ (www. youtube.com/watch?v=PB-9LERsyY8). WEIGHT AND CONTACT

Be aware that weight can be an area of vulnerability for some participants – they may have anxieties about their size (large or small) and this may manifest in assumptions for them about what they can or cannot do. Whilst no-one should be made to do anything that they do not want to attempt, experienced leadership and care over setting up and explaining exercises, as well as a supportive, energised and positive environment, can help people achieve more than they might have thought possible. Encourage everyone to at least have a go. Even identifying what is possible can be useful and positive for participants. If you are working with participants who have specific mobility needs or physiological restrictions to their movement, then look for special­ ist advice. Size and weight are complex in terms of their social, cultural, politi­ cal and gendered significances. Whilst a physical theatre workshop is not necessarily the place to raise and discuss these issues, it is important to be aware of the ways that social pressures may act upon the moving body PRACTICAL WORK

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of the participant. Whether or not you decide or wish to examine these issues in more detail through the workshop or after it, focusing the group on the task and its safe and efficient performance should still be the starting point. Treating the task as a technical challenge need not mean denying its social significances, but can enable participants to move past inhibitions and assumptions about their own abilities. As a general principle, anybody can lift someone (in some way and according to their physiological lim­ its): it’s just about developing and maintaining good technique and build­ ing up to more adventurous weight-taking for each individual. EXERCISE 4.7: BALANCING AND LIFTING

• • •

•

Ask participants to find a partner about the same height, and to identify who is person A and who is person B. The pair then connect at the hips, ‘pocket to pocket’. They lean into each other and feel the other person’s weight, leaning towards each other. A places their hip slightly lower than the hip of B. Still side-by-side, B places their arm around A’s shoulder. A places their arm around B’s waist, and then A rocks B up and towards them, lifting them and then returning them to the ground (Figure 4.4). B should press down onto A’s shoulders with their arm and armpit, using similar muscular effort as if getting out of a swimming pool. Remember – the focus here is to balance and ‘stack’ a partner’s weight over the lifter’s centre of gravity or hip.

Development This work will inevitably start tentatively, but as pairs build in confi­ dence they can become more ambitious. It helps if A does not place their feet too far apart – they then become so stable that any movement is difficult. B needs to balance on A’s hip, and not try to jump into or assist the movement beyond keeping enough tension in their body so as not to collapse into the partner. When pairs find the balance point and the right momentum, they may not even have to hold each other too tightly. Ask them to swap and take turns. You can also swap pairs around to add variety and keep the process of discovery and exploration going. A can try pivoting on the lift and then using that to walk their partner (B) a few paces in a new direction.

Figure 4.4 Gavin Maxwell instructing partners in balancing and taking weight in a lift. Left to right: Alice May Eadson and Emma Rowbotham. Source: Photo by Mark Evans.

Note and discuss what is being learnt in relation to the key principles of shifting weight, balancing, and lifting. LIFTING

Once participants are used to working with the weight of a partner in this way, the group should be able to move on to exploring some other simple lifts. This may also benefit from some thought around who should work with whom. As with the other exercises, the leader needs to keep repeating the relevant key principles and keep the focus of the participants on simply performing the task as efficiently as possible. This is another opportunity to swap partners round. New pairs will once again need to identify who is A and who is B. PRACTICAL WORK

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EXERCISE 4.8: LIFTING A PARTNER

• • • •

Person A drops their body into a squat (not too deep, just bending legs, back straight). B, standing at a right angle to A, then leans into them with one arm over one of A’s shoulders. A hugs B and lifts them, a bit like trying to uproot a tree (Figure 4.5). A lifts B, steps a pace or two and places B down again.

Development Think about the transitions into and out of the floor. It is important for A and B in different ways to press down – A can use the floor as a sur­ face to push down into so as to initiate the lift; B can use their partner like a ledge, and can push down onto the ledge as they are lifted.When the exercise works, holding on becomes less necessary – but be careful at first. Participants can practise walking into and out of the lift. Focus on the work that the person being lifted needs to do to make the lifting seem effortless. An additional lift can work as follows: • • •

Person A squats slightly to the side of B and places their nearest arm across the front of B, so that their hand is on B’s back. B places both hands onto A’s shoulders and pushes down. Both press their hips together, and A steps and tilts to lift B to the side (Figure 4.6). You can progress this lift so that when B has been lifted they turn their toes in towards A, which turns their body in towards A, who can then place them down again.

These exercises can now provide a palate of shifting, squeezing, pressing and lifting movements. Get pairs to try and explore mov­ ing within the space, using these principles and skills as the main elements of their work together. Remind them not to jump into lifts at this stage; lean, lift and hug instead. When lifting, the lifter should think that they are providing a ledge for their partner; as the person being lifted leans into the lifter, the lifter straightens up – they should ground their lift in the floor and think of straightening. Keep returning to the principles – check that everybody is working

Figure 4.5 Gavin Maxwell and Emma Rowbotham demonstrating how A lifts B from under the shoulder. Background: Ali Azhar, William Townsend and Gemma Maddock. Source: Photo by Mark Evans.

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Figure 4.6 Gavin Maxwell (left) and Simon Pittman (right) demonstrate a side lift – balancing weight and lifting. Source: Photo by Mark Evans.

with these in mind, even when you are being more creative and exploring different ways of using the palette of movements you now have. Workshop leaders should not be afraid to walk the room and check how people are doing, correcting problems when they arise, advising on technique, reinforcing the key principles and praising good work. Although these lifts have been used above to create some short sequences, it is important to remember that the purpose of the lifts in this kind of workshop context is as learning tools. The lifts help establish

the key principles of lifting, and should not be seen as set moves that have to be put into performance. This can be a good moment for a water and comfort break. Don’t break for so long that muscles get cold, or that concentration fades. GENERATING PHYSICAL MATERIAL

This is often a part of the workshop that participants will have been look­ ing forward to. The best way to begin is with a simple ‘starting concept’, and then to layer the work up, building confidence and maintaining focus on the task. Again, remind participants not to start ‘end-gaming’. End-gaming will inhibit the creation of surprises and innovation: par­ ticipants simply produce what they know they can already do and are comfortable with. In the worst instances, end-gaming perpetuates a false and inauthentic representation of what physical theatre is and of the performer/participant’s performance identity. The ‘starting concept’ is an important part of the process. You will notice that the words used as starting concepts below, although they have some associations and resonances, are not words that evoke immediate and precise meanings. These words are invitations to action, allowing multiple interpretations. This is important – they are where you start, and the finish point should be unknown and not predeter­ mined, if genuine innovation and creativity are to be enabled. EXERCISE 4.9: THREE STARTING POINTS

The Advanced Training group were given three words as the starting concept: • • •

hold trace orientate (or ‘take to another place’).

Notice the emphasis on movement, the hint of multiple possible reso­ nances, and the lack of any finish point.What other words might you be able to use? Make a list and consider how suitable each word might be. Before participants start to work on devising their sequences, remind them: •

It is not necessary to respond to the words in the order that they are provided, but they can do so if they wish. PRACTICAL WORK

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Not to look for or try to make ‘cool moves’. It can be valuable to allow a substantial amount of time for this exercise so that pairs can work past any temptation to impress or end-game. Drawing the exercise out for longer than might feel comfortable pushes devising groups past their first solutions, and past any moves that they are drawn to initially as aesthetically pleasing. Just to investigate the task – no need to embellish or turn it into a story, which can lead to end-gaming. One cycle of the three concepts is a ‘set’, and once they have estab­ lished and honed one set, they should add another and run both sets together. Each time they add a new set they should run the whole sequence from the start – this helps them to remember the sequence they are making. To make sure that they have all three starting concepts (hold, trace, orientate) in each set of movements, and that both people in the group do all three. To check for unconscious assumptions they might be making. They can trace on their partner with any part of their body, not just the hand, for instance. Be simple at first, don’t try to overcomplicate the exercise. Offer an end position for their partner from which the partner might be able to start their next sequence. Build additional sets. Don’t be afraid to add, develop and change. (Remember, as above, that each time something is added, the pair should go back to the start to embed the sequence in their memories.) ‘Orientate’ may include exploring weight-taking and lifting – but it does not have to. If they are getting into patterns, then break them. Avoid presenting the work with a presumed ‘style’.

Tell pairs to work towards having an even number of sets ready – somewhere between six and ten is good. Remember that A and B should be taking turns to lead and follow physically as they devise mate­ rial, building on what was learnt in ‘Push Hands’. When all pairs have created their sequence of movements, ask them to run their sequences from the top, saying the ‘starting concept’ words as they do them. This will remind them of the sequence, identify any missing elements, and refocus them on the task (Figure 4.7).

Figure 4.7 Pairs working on sequences of movements based on ‘hold’, ‘trace’ and ‘orientate’. Left to right: Emma Rowbotham and Katherine Bri­ stow, Beth Morton and William Townsend, Melissa Firlit and Alex Ballinger, Hayley McFadyen and Natasha Baiguerra, and (at the back) Ali Azhar and Gemma Maddock. Source: Photo by Mark Evans.

Development You could now try to introduce another ‘starting concept’ word. For the Advanced Training group, the additional concept word was ‘thread’. •

•

The partner leading a set within a pair’s sequence now looks to offer an opportunity for their partner to thread through/past them within a section of their sequence. This might mean finding a way under an arm, through legs, under the partner’s body – the impor­ tant thing is to investigate physically what might be possible and to be on the lookout for opportunities. Pairs should try to do this in silence, letting their bodies sense when an opportunity might be occurring. If they pre-plan and manipulate PRACTICAL WORK

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the sequence too self-consciously in order to create moments to thread, the result will look contrived and artificial. Each pair should start by trying to insert two threads each, just running their sequences and looking for potential thread moments.

What other ‘starting concept’ words could you use at this point: lift, balance, run? This process of making creative choices on the move, of testing and exploring what works, is a key part of Frantic’s method. Another key focus is keeping the work simple, so that it is always possible to add layers and variations (speeding up, slowing down, changing position in the space, altering perspective, making smaller or larger, adding sound, music, words or text). The realisation quickly comes that creativity arises from within the group and is activated by provocations from the leaders rather than being the result of instructions, verbal negotiations or pre-planning. Finally, ask each pair to make one single looping sequence of all the movements they have devised. In order to achieve a fluid sequence, they may need to tweak the start and/or end a little so that it can be looped. Set up all the pairs so that they can then run their sequence three times through without breaks – think about what music, or selections of music, might be interesting to play alongside these run-throughs. Ask pairs to play with the dynamics of the work they have created – for instance, go faster after every loop of the full sequence, or slow down after each loop. Ask one or two pairs to present their sequences. Those watching can then offer feedback on what they saw, discussing any res­ onances that emerged. This may be a useful time for the group to have a brief break, or to stop and discuss the work created so far and the participants’ experience of the process. Next, or on restarting after a break, ask the participants to reprise their sequences. Remind them to notice what has changed after a break, particularly in relation to the way the sequence is performed (faster, slower, more confident) and the mood of the workshop (lighter, heav­ ier, more or less concentrated). Their experience may also be changed by the use of a different soundtrack. Sometimes a relaxed rerun of a sequence can bring different fluidities or qualities of motion into play, and pairs may find that they can discover a different kind of naturalness to the movement as a result of not trying as hard.

Development • • • •

Once again, consider exploring the size and scale of the movements – what could be smaller or larger, what happens in moving from small to large or vice-versa? How natural and everyday can pairs make the movements – what else changes as the movements become more natural and everyday? Look out for opportunities where a moment of contact might be developed into a lift or hold. Notice that being simple and efficient in movement leaves choices open, enabling the pairs to find what works for them and for you.

This kind of duet/pair work is a useful training tool for a number of rea­ sons. Benefits to the kind of workshop activities outlined above include developing sensitivity to a partner, working with weight and lifting, developing creative responses to simple tasks, and encouraging collab­ orative creation. Remind the group of the key things to watch for while they are cre­ ating and rehearsing the sequences: • •

• •

Watch for how weight is transferred into a lift or hold. They should try to ‘pour’ their weight onto their partner, not putting all the weight onto them all at once. Try doing the sequence slowly. If they can do it slowly, they will certainly be capable of doing it faster. Going slowly makes them work out what isn’t really working and enables them to solve problems. Notice how, as material becomes more technically accurate, it becomes more malleable and can be varied in new ways. Remember to keep restating the key principles of the movement work. Focus the group on technique and on the quality of the movement work, not on story or movement aesthetics. Avoid fall­ ing into the trap of making meaning with the work too early. Shake things up every now and then by changing the music, refocusing on the principles, or varying the focus. This can be done in a number of ways, some of which are suggested below:  Run all the pairs’ sequences from the top, but as if in slow-motion

(at least half the normal speed).

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 Try instructing the pairs to run their sequences with their eyes   



closed – move amongst the group and gently guide people to ensure that pairs don’t collide with each other. Then try with eyes open, and with or without eye contact. Try with both partners looking at a fixed point in the room, such as a clock or other physical feature of the space, or with both partners looking at one partner’s hands. Try running the sequence and laughing all the way through it. This can give the pairs something else to think about, and as a result make the movement surprisingly natural. Once one person laughs and another engages, the observers often see warmth, history and complexity. Keep varying the tempo of the music and the sequences – notice how speeding up makes the participants think further ahead in the sequence.

Discuss what changes in the quality of the movement when pairs try each of these variations. What other variations in focus could you try? WORKSHOPPING THE MATERIAL: EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF WHAT IS MADE

Get the group into a circle, splitting partners up so that they are not next to each other but almost facing each other across the room. Each pair, one at a time, then walks towards each other into the centre of the circle and runs their sequence of material. If a pair gets lost in their sequence, encourage them to keep going and to try to work their way back into the sequence or towards the/an end. There is, of course, also a role for those observing each pair perform their sequence. They can note what is interesting, what attracts their attention – making brief mental notes to feed back when all the pairs have shared their work. Encourage pairs to just run the sequence: to do the task and not to embellish. The temptation to ‘perform’ will be very strong now, and it is easy for them to think that they have to make the work they have cre­ ated look ‘good’ or ‘interesting’ or typical of Frantic’s work. Remind the participants to try and resist these pitfalls – at this point they are only making raw material and it is not yet developed into a piece of theatre. Remind them also that the making process doesn’t pause when they are

presenting material – these moments of presentation do not represent a ‘finished product’. Ask the participants to keep playful and present, and not to slip into just repeating the sequence as if on auto-pilot. Another potential trap at this stage is that the pairs listen too closely to the music, trying (either consciously or subconsciously) to match their sequence to the lyrics and/or to the mood and atmosphere of the track(s) that you are using. If this happens, you might want to subtly change the music – fading into a different track or tune. It is important to encourage the pairs just to do the sequence as they would normally do it and allow those watching to identify what connections may be emerging. If the pairs strain to match the movement to the music, they will end up only giving those watching something that they might already expect from the music. It is more interesting to encounter unexpected clashes or counterpoints between the music and the movement. Encourage the pairs to surprise those watching, and to surprise themselves! WINDING UP

Allow the group to settle and decompress when the main physical activ­ ity is finished. Perhaps give them time to write, make notes and sketch things from the workshop. They may want to clarify notes that they have made during the earlier phases. At this stage there can be value in drawing the group together for shared discussion. Below are some discussion topics that can be useful prompts: • • • • • • • • •

What is satisfying to watch? What held their attention? What surprised them? How visible was the effort? What effect does the level of visibility have? How were the bodies used, what parts of the body were used? How fluid and economical was the movement? Notice how the little things became interesting – small moments that caught their attention. The effect can be like a camera zooming in. Notice the temptation to read narrative into the sequences and to see the potential for stories. How might the material made be used and developed further? Remember, the workshop has developed raw material that is not yet PRACTICAL WORK

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‘performance’ – how might it be used within the context of building a piece of theatre? You might also be interested to ask why moments are identified as being interesting. Take time over this activity, and encourage talk about detail and what makes detail interesting. Notice and discuss the effect of music choices and any changes in music mid-sequence. THE PRESUMPTIONS

It is very important, and central to the way that Frantic Assembly oper­ ate, to notice that work is always laden with presumptions. One way to develop creativity and innovation is not only to identify and recognise such presumptions, but also to challenge them. Graham talks about how ‘as soon as I’ve made something […] I’ll think to myself, “what am I presuming here?”’ (2018). Consider what presumptions are present in the task described above: to devise and present a pair sequence based on the given starting con­ cepts. Perhaps these might include the presumptions that: • • • • • • • • • • •

it is a duet it has music with it pairs make contact and/or touch it is watched by the group, in the round you are not sitting down you are in this room the group view it from this perspective (rather than above, below, from outside, etc.) there is no text and no words the pace/tempo is what it is the weight is what it is the sequence is in that order, without bits added or taken away.

What other presumptions might be present? Remember that all these presumptions can be challenged and can provide new stimuli for working on the sequences, for developing the sequences (with or without text), and for their reception by an audi­ ence. Take one of these presumptions and think through how the group could now adapt their work in the light of such a challenge. Think of the

workshop as a laboratory in which the group members are able to test and play with these presumptions and keep challenging the presump­ tions that they make – allow the group to be the ‘bad scientists’. This means taking risks and trying things that none of you knows the answer to, not trying to prove something that you already know. Don’t be afraid of learning through and being surprised by failure. The group may discover things that are not right for the project at hand – that is not failure, remember it for another time and another project. This goes right back to the early work of Frantic – a group of young people challenging why theatre had to be the way it was, and learning their craft on the road. TOUCH

For example, let’s consider possible assumptions around touch, how these assumptions can become ingrained in the work that is made, and what happens if we start to challenge these assumptions. The nature of Frantic’s work means that touch is implicit in almost all of their prac­ tices. They describe touch as one of the bedrocks to doing any contact work (see Chapter 2 for more detail), but that also means it is important not to take touch for granted. Graham and Hoggett talk about ‘the uni­ verse before the touch, there is the universe during the touch and then there is the universe after the touch’ (2014: 147–8). This statement recognises the enormous potential for meaning and significance that circulates around the act and idea of touching, and it also exhorts the performer not to diminish those universes. Touch and space are central to Frantic’s practice and are at the heart of their theatre-making pro­ cesses, as Hoggett states: ‘Frantic is absolutely forensic about the space between two people’s bodies’ (Hoggett 2019). The following exercise offers provocations that might be explored as follow-ons from the pre­ vious work on building sequences. EXERCISE 4.10: MOMENTS OF TOUCH

• •

Start by asking pairs simply to experience and notice the moments of touch within their sequences. ‘Don’t take touch as a given’ (Gra­ ham and Hoggett 2014: 148). Remind them not to jump into giving the moments of touch mean­ ing, or making the sequences or the touches melodramatic or overPRACTICAL WORK

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significant. The participants just need to be alert to the presence of touch and to its potential. It can be useful, at first, to run the sequence of movements very slowly and pay attention to what happens – for instance around the moments of touch – whilst again avoiding any temptation to equate slowness with significance and meaning.

Discuss how doing this feels – for the performers and the observers. Focus attention on the awareness of what is being ‘put into’ the sequence and the touches. Remind the participants to do the sequence and lis­ ten to what is happening to them. Get everyone to observe each other’s sequences and discuss what the moments of touch bring to the work. Thinking about the touch then becomes a way to allow you to experience the sequence in more depth. This workshop took place several months prior to the 2020 Covid­ 19 pandemic, which (at least temporarily) has brought a different dynamic to touch, its safety and its meanings. You may wish to explore the repercussions of this change through practice, as and when it is safe to do so. Development You can use this kind of work around touch to develop sequences that have emotional depth and complexity, but without putting unnecessary pressure on the participants. Focusing on technical aspects of touch and contact (or its absence) can enable the work to avoid end-gaming and the forcing of emotional content. •

Run the sequence so that the pairs are always in contact with or on a window ledge (or other different space) (Figure 4.8). Think what other kinds of space might be interesting: under a table, in a door­ way, sitting in a corner, on a bed). Get them to adapt the sequence to the limitations that the space provides. Encourage them to make it work and find a way to do it. Does the sequence have to change? What changes in the nature and quality of the moments of touch or separation? Does it look or feel different for the performers? For those watching? How might it change the meanings circulating around the sequence?

Figure 4.8 Performing the sequence in an unusual space. Left to right: Ali Azhar and Phoebe Hyder. Source: Photo by Mark Evans.

•

Play with the position of the audience – could they be outside the room, or looking from above or under? What do they notice from viewing the sequence from a new perspective? How might you use such a change of perspective? How might it work within a theatre? PRACTICAL WORK

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Play with where the pair’s focus is – on each other, or out towards the audience or some other point in the room. How does this also change the way the participants experience the sequence and the moments of touch? How does it change the way the audience mem­ bers view these moments? Try with and without music. Change the music. You could also run the sequence avoiding touch. How far apart can pairs be before it doesn’t work any more? How close can they be without touching? What happens if, by accident, they do touch? You could explore what happens when they enlarge the touch into pushes or pulls. This can then make the touch very dynamic and lead to highly physical work, but you should start from the simple act of touching first, and come back to it if things get too ‘over-wrought’.

Touch has more recently (post #MeToo) become more widely recog­ nised as an area of ethical complexity for performers, and it is impor­ tant to agree consent for touch between people to ensure that trust is maintained and that no-one feels exploited or vulnerable. Within the workshop observed and documented for this chapter, it was always clear that even when exercises or tasks were being performed at speed and with high intensity, that was never an excuse not to demonstrate care for co-participants. Workshop leaders should demonstrate com­ plex or challenging exercises, identifying where care and attention to the vulnerability of others will be needed. STARTING POINTS FOR DEVISING TEXT

We have seen in earlier chapters how Frantic Assembly has, through­ out almost all of the company’s history, worked with writers. You may wish to work with text that is already written – but even without a writer or text, it is always possible for performers to find ways to create sections of textual material. This can be done using a range of starting points and building material from basic ideas and provocations, in much the same way that the choreography has been created. The technique that was used in the Advanced Training workshop is based upon an exercise first introduced by the writer Michael Wynne for the devising and rehearsal process for Sell Out (1998). The exercise

works through a questionnaire and encourages a form of automatic writing – basically asking participants to just write and keep writing in response to a series of prompts or questions. The history of the Questionnaire exercise and some details on how you might use it are described in The Frantic Book (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 190–3). Even if you are working with a writer, using this method can create a wealth of very useful material as well as building connections between the writer and the performers (ibid.: 191). It helps to create another kind of useful connection between the topic you want to explore and the various experiences of the participants. EXERCISE 4.11: THE QUESTIONNAIRE

When devising a questionnaire, consider the advice in The Frantic Book (2014: 192): use ‘open’ questions that invite full responses; find a bal­ ance between questions that are playful and fun and questions that might delve a little deeper; decide whether or not to reveal the theme before asking the questions. Before starting the exercise, ensure that there is enough paper available and pens or pencils for everyone, and that every­ one can find a space where they can write without being disturbed or overlooked by someone else. Below are a few tips that help the exercise work effectively. It is useful to run through these with the participants before starting the exercise. • • •

• •

Try not to write just one-sentence answers. Be open to the provocation/question – have fun with it. This exercise is about getting ideas going, not about creating a finished text. Ask everyone to write their name on the paper that they use – this is not about ownership per se, but it is useful and appropriate to acknowledge where ideas started. Don’t rush the exercise. Give each provocation (see list below) adequate time to ensure that the participants are pushed beyond the first things they think of. (This means leaving plenty of time for this exercise, perhaps 30 minutes or more.) Play music in the background – it helps to ease the anxiety that silence can create. Make it clear that responses can be stories, lists, sets of opinions, poetry – anything. PRACTICAL WORK

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Here is a list of the provocations used in the Advanced Training workshop: • • • • • • • • • •

Things that it is better to keep to yourself. Tell us how you feel about silence. Give us your best well-being, Headspace-style podcast talk. (See www.headspace.com for examples.) Finish this sentence as many ways as you can. ‘When no-one is watching/is listening/knows, people…’ (Participants can respond to ‘watching’, or ‘listening’, or ‘knows’, or any combination.) Describe all the details of a beautiful place you have been. What are your deal-breakers to share with a partner? Share with us something you wish you’d said, but didn’t, and why. Tell us what you really think about that thing that wound you up the other day. Write for three minutes on the theme ‘My Escape’. Write a tiny piece of dialogue or a conversation that someone shouldn’t have overheard.

Note with regard to safe-guarding: it is not necessary for participants to write something personal, they can make it up. You may need to be aware of how to deal with any personal issues that arise. You can also look at the original questionnaire used for Sell Out (Gra­ ham and Hoggett 2014: 192–3) for some other examples of the way questions might move between the serious and playful, the personal and the social. As Graham and Hoggett assert, ‘this is not playwriting by commit­ tee’ (ibid.: 191). Decisions will still need to be made about what works, what can be used, how it will be used, and so on. What this will do is create written material that will surprise your group and take you into aspects of your topic or theme that you had not considered. It will also allow everyone in the group to feel that they have some stake in the work and that they are part of the creative writing process. Remem­ ber, there is no reason why anyone else in your team – designers, tech­ nicians, musicians – should not also take part in this exercise if they are comfortable to do so. Writing to questionnaires can be a safe and confidential way of sharing ideas and experiences, provided it is set up in the right way. The text that is created through this process may be used in a number of ways: a writer may use it as a starting point for their own writing; extracts may be used as text for the performers;

extracts may be used as a stimulus for movement work, and never be spoken out loud; the writing may inspire the development of a scene, or a section of dialogue; the writing may be spoken by the person who wrote it, but just as often it is interesting to see what happens when it is given to someone else to speak. However the texts are used, it is always important to ensure that you ask permission from the person who wrote it for it to be used – some material may be very personal to the writer, and asking permission also reaffirms the sense that the per­ formers co-own the work. An important judgement for the leader or director is to decide whether authorship of any text is openly recognised within the group, or remains confidential. Some of the themes that this workshop was designed to play with were sound, intimacy and voices. Think about how the above ques­ tionnaire’s provocations might resonate with these themes. Think also about how they might resonate with the movement exercises outlined earlier in this chapter. Development In pairs, run the physical sequences. Choose one of the pieces of text from the exercise above. Do not choose a piece of text that connects obviously and directly with a sequence. Think about who should speak the text – one or both of the partners, external voice(s), recorded voice(s)? Let them try speaking the text at the start, at the end, and dur­ ing the sequence. Consider the impact of each change. Explore using all the text or sections of it. Remind pairs to avoid the text simply repeat­ ing what the movement says. How might the movement lead into the text, the text lead into the movement, or the movement and text work together? Repeat the work to discover ways into the movement or into the text that are not pre-conceived or pre-planned. PERFORMING/ACTING/MAKING

Remember that none of the work described above needs to preclude the exploration of conventional psychophysical acting (e.g. working within the Stanislavski tradition) and internal action and intention. You may want to explore how conventional acting techniques can be applied within the context of this work, and it is OK to do this. It is very important, however, to utilise such approaches as only another PRACTICAL WORK

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way of workshopping and exploring ‘starting concepts’, and not as the predominant approach. When working on productions, Graham likes to remind actors that there are contexts within which characters have much less understanding of a situation than an active audience mem­ ber. One example he uses is that a performer does not put on make-up based on how it feels, but on how it looks; this is to say that the per­ spective of the observer is important, and what the performer brings to that observed moment is only part (though an important part) of the transference of meaning. You might start by considering what happens if you ask participants to use ‘action’ words (transitive verbs that describe your attitude and/ or objective) to play a movement sequence. What changes? If their intention as a performer becomes clearer, does this make the meaning too obvious for the audience? How much does the audience need to know about the performer’s intentions and objectives in a sequence? Resist the temptation to think that because the performers ‘feel’ the movement more intensely, the effect for the audience is necessarily better. This desire to question the psychophysical logic of naturalistic performance was part of the initial impetus for Frantic’s work in its early days; the impulse to question easy answers remains central to how the company works. Bear in mind what Graham and Hoggett say about subtext: ‘The difficult thing to gauge is whether, by articulating the subtext, you are giving the audience something new and valuable or are you just doing their thinking for them?’ (2014: 177). Consider how this might apply to exploring forms of psychophysical acting. Remember as well that, while the actor’s approach to character is a personal choice (often shaped by training) and part of an actor’s ‘homework’, there is a wide world of possibilities and perspectives to learn from. VIDEO

The Frantic Book talks about the potential benefits of videoing rehearsals (Graham and Hoggett 2014: 24–6). This can be useful if you are devis­ ing a show, but be careful how you introduce filming into your working environment. Reviewing what the group have done can be very useful, especially if the work is fast and intense, which may make it difficult to see detail in real time. Re-watching exercises can be an effective way of explaining how efficiently techniques are being used; but the camera

must not become a distraction, and you do not want participants think­ ing about how they look or whether the camera is catching their best moves. This can be mitigated in a number of ways. Firstly, the work is often demanding enough that the participants soon forget about the camera because of the need to focus on what they are doing; secondly, when the work is played back it will be very obvious who is distracted or obsessed by the camera; and thirdly, often the most interesting work is the least expected: ‘All of the good bits were accidental, all of the bits we thought were good were anything but’ (ibid.: 26). Remember that if you are going to share any video footage of workshop activity via social media or online sharing platforms, you should first gain the permission of all those involved. PLACING PRACTICAL WORK IN CONTEXT

If it is of interest, after the workshop, participants may want to examine possible similarities with some other training practices. They might for instance be encouraged to note and investigate the similarities of this work to Lecoq’s ‘Twenty Movements’ (see Evans in Evans and Kemp 2016: 107–9). Students at the Lecoq School in Paris learn movement phrases based on twenty different kinds of movement, which they are then tasked to use as the movement palette for a sequence that each stu­ dent creates on their own. The ‘Twenty Movements’ are largely based not on everyday gestures and movements, but on sports and gymnastic actions (skating, punting, sculling, swimming, weight-lifting, acrobat­ ics, discus throwing, moving objects) which are performed individually and designed to introduce the student to notions of push/pull, undu­ lation and fixed points. Because the Frantic work described above is created in pairs, the emphasis tends not to be on the individual in space, as with the ‘Twenty Movements’, but rather on more social and socially interactive aspects of the movement work. It may also be of interest to look at the movement études devised and used by director/teachers such as Meyerhold (Pitches 2018), Grotowski (Slowiak and Cuesta 2018) and Barba (Turner 2019). Meyerhold’s études are used to develop skills of balance, control and dexterity, and as an introduction to composition. They are more formal and stylised than Frantic’s work, but they do function in a similar way as a bridge between training, stage composition and performing. Grotowski and PRACTICAL WORK

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Barba have also used the idea of scores or études within both training and the devising and performing of material. Grotowski’s work, how­ ever, demands that the student/actor delve deep into their personal psyche in order to create material which is authentic and meaningful. Frantic’s work does not require this focus on an almost spiritual authen­ ticity; they are instead happy to defer meaning and to recognise the role of the audience in making sense of what is offered.

C O N C LUSION

Frantic’s journey offers a fascinating and compelling picture of what it has meant over the past 25 years to set up, develop, run and sustain a contemporary theatre company. Their journey also challenges the current idea that scratch nights, emergent artist showcases and endless development are what ultimately matter and make a difference for new theatre-makers. Frantic learnt their craft on the road, from the feedback they got from each other, and from the responses of audiences, critics and those they worked with. One potential risk of such a process is the lack of clear authority for creative decisions, but at that point, early in Frantic’s development, it allowed for – and indeed required – the evolution of the production, and the making of decisions, in the face of actual audience response. It also required collaboration and openness in terms of who had the last word in the rehearsal room: we would have to perform things for a while and get the [audience] reaction before we realised that something didn’t work. We had such long tours that we could afford to do that. The kids who were watching us didn’t care if that worked or not. They cared about other things. (Davis 2019)

Making their own touring productions taught them how to put a show together, and also allowed them the room both to make mistakes and

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to follow their own instincts. Frantic Assembly have not been afraid to stick with the processes that have worked for the company in the past, nor have they failed to keep innovating and testing assumptions. Few UK companies of this vintage have sustained the pace that Frantic have achieved – DV8, Improbable, and Complicité have all slowed the rates at which they make new work, producing main-stage shows only as and when the interests and outside commitments of their directors (Lloyd Newson, Phelim McDermott and Simon McBurney) allow. Few UK companies have been driven by the same core team for so long – Paines Plough and Shared Experience, for instance, have had several changes of leadership; Complicité, Improbable, and Cheek by Jowl stand out along­ side Frantic as companies still led by members of the founding team. Several companies from the late 1980s and early 1990s fund and pre­ miere much of their work in mainland Europe (Cheek by Jowl, Reckless Sleepers, Forced Entertainment, and to a lesser extent Complicité), and their international profiles reflect their interest in forms of performance (including live art and performance art) that are well supported in those regions. It would be wrong, however, to perceive Frantic as nothing more than a UK theatre phenomenon. It is worth concluding with some reflections on the international impact of their work. INTERNATIONAL IMPACT

From quite early on, Frantic have toured their work overseas. By 2007, they had taken performances, workshops and residencies to over 30 dif­ ferent countries. The British Council, with its remit to promote British culture around the world, recognised that physical theatre had a valua­ ble role to play in this aim – offering, as it did, exciting, contemporary performances, the enjoyment of which relied only partially on an ability to understand the English language. Released in 2007, Frantic’s Inter­ national Showreel (www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTZsRF3qk_w), fea­ turing footage from some of the earliest shows as well as more recent ones, was clearly designed to promote the company’s work beyond the UK. During the 1990s and 2000s, the exchange of physical theatre prac­ tice across Europe expanded rapidly, fuelled in part by the enactment in 1995 of the Schengen Agreement and Convention, which provided for freedom of movement within most of Europe. At the same time, the expansion of global trade created a market for, and an interest in, cultural exchange. As a successful medium-scale UK theatre company,

Frantic offered innovative and exciting shows that could connect with like-minded demographics around the world. Frantic’s success in Australia (including tours and co-productions) also merits closer examination. Murray and Keefe (2016: 22) draw attention to the way in which physical theatre practice has spoken to specific cultural preoccupations in Australia. They suggest that the suc­ cess of physical theatre in Australia can be seen as representative of a desire to celebrate social diversity and reposition theatre practice away from the tropes of a colonial culture traditionally based on texts and on naturalism. The connections Frantic has with Australian theatre net­ works and audiences have also been strengthened by Vicki Middleton’s relocation there following her departure from the company. The success in the USA of productions such as Beautiful Burnout (which toured to St Ann’s Warehouse in New York in 2011), and of productions for which Graham and/or Hoggett have worked as move­ ment directors, has meant that Frantic Assembly is increasingly recog­ nised as an international theatre company of note. In 2018, they offered a tour of Learn and Train workshops and residencies across the USA and Canada, including open workshops in New York and Los Angeles. Although now no longer a member of the company, Hoggett has had a very successful career in the USA, providing movement direction and choreography for a succession of high-profile Broadway productions including American Idiot (2010), Once (2011), The Glass Menagerie (2013), Rocky (2014), The Last Ship (2014) and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016). He has spoken about the extent to which theatrical produc­ ers now recognise the value of collaborative approaches to movement, choreography and theatre-making in ways that have been facilitated by the international success of shows like Black Watch, Curious Incident and Harry Potter (Evans 2019: 36–43). The international impact of the company is, however, not just about particular productions, tours or awards. Nor is it only about the content of the shows. It is also about a collaborative and empowering process, and about the integration of movement and dance within theatre. In proposing not just a way of communicating narrative or emotion, but also a way of being together physically within the world, Frantic have found working methods that have international appeal. Their workshops and residencies capture the ethos that has informed all of their work: empower people, keep being creative, and challenge presumptions and preconceptions. This is an ethos that has become recognised and valued CONCLUSION

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by many of the theatre directors, producers and actors who have worked with them over the years or experienced the company’s productions. Such an ethos is harder than it might look to achieve and sustain, but is very important in the contemporary theatre industry; as Hoggett states: I guess we just became very good at getting to a result point very quickly, whilst at the same time never having anybody kind of steam-roller through anybody else. We became very deft at that – as a language and as a way of conduct in a room – so I guess that’s been the thing that’s been a blessing for the both of us. […] It’s certainly the thing that is afforded us by other people in the room because they know that it works. Particularly with Marianne [Elliott]; within a day she was just, ‘You guys just do what you do, because this is going to work’. So it becomes a kind of system, really. (Hoggett 2019)

For Hoggett, the generosity at the heart of the company comes from the ability to watch and listen, and best idea wins… all those things that people talk about a lot, but they’re hard to implement when you get a bit forceful. And we were never afforded the right to be forceful, we negotiated beautifully. And easily, easily. Negotiation is easy. (ibid.)

The company continues to innovate, to draw in new collaborators, and to explore innovative ways of responding to new challenges. On 17 March 2020, as a result of the closure of all UK theatres because of the Covid-19 outbreak, the company was forced to curtail its UK tour of I Think We Are Alone. On 3 April 2020, the company launched Frantic Digital, described as ‘our new digital resource exploring our work and inviting you to get creative and participate and share your ideas’ (Fran­ tic Assembly 2020c). The project used a different Frantic show each week as a starting point, around which various resources were offered: a weekly Frantic warm-up; a ‘Frantic Flashback’, with Scott Graham talking through the process of creating that show with key collaborators from the production; a weekly creative task which participants could join in with at home, sharing their responses; and various other material around the specific show and Frantic’s methods more generally. All this was also augmented with interviews, discussions, and video content.

This initiative speaks to the agility of the company, its generosity, and its ability to reconfigure its considerable resources into new formats to suit new needs. The company has also developed its education and training work into a comprehensive online offer, which, as well as tackling the challenges imposed by the global pandemic, has also helped to broaden the international reach of the company’s work. So much of Frantic’s work, both onstage and behind the scenes, has been about the struggle to connect with others, the need for love, inti­ macy and friendship, the desire to explore the limits of what is possible, and the drive to challenge each individual to push those limits for them­ selves. The impulse behind Frantic Digital is the same, fundamentally, as that which has driven the company since its very inception: the wish to empower others. Frantic Assembly has always been passionate about the connection to our audience. That audience grew from workshops we would offer to schools, and then those schools would come to see the shows. […] [W]hat we have always strived to offer was a way in, either to the practicalities of making work your­ self or the increasingly political awareness that theatre can be for you and that you are welcome. […] That helped create an ethos within Frantic Assem­ bly where the demystification of the creative process was central to all of our engagement. (Graham 2020c)

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Gardner, Lyn (1998b) ‘Stinging truth from web of lies’, The Guardian, 21 October, Home section, p. 2. Gardner, Lyn (1999a) ‘Vicky’s Odyssey’, The Guardian, 12 May. Avail­ able at: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/may/12/arts features1. Accessed: 2 March 2020. Gardner, Lyn (1999b) ‘Young man’s burden’, The Guardian, 19 Novem­ ber. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/1999/nov/19/ theatre.artsfeatures1. Accessed: 20 April 2020. Gardner, Lyn (2001) ‘Tiny Dynamite’, The Guardian, 7 August, p. 14. Gardner, Lyn (2002) ‘Heavenly’, The Guardian, 17 April, p. 14. Gardner, Lyn (2007) ‘Stockholm’, The Guardian, 26 September. Availa­ ble at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2007/sep/26/theatre1. Accessed: 30 October 2020. Gardner, Lyn (2015) ‘Frantic Assembly’s Othello: “You don’t want to put people off Shakespeare for ever”’, The Guardian, 6 January. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jan/06/frantic-assembly­ othello-scott-graham-steven-hoggett-interview. Accessed: 24 January 2020. Gardner, Lyn (2020) ‘We must shake up theatre’s hierarchies to ensure its future artistic health’, The Stage, 10 February. Available at: https:// www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/lyn-gardner-we-must-shake-up-theatres­ hierarchies-to-ensure-its-future-artistic-health. Accessed: 20 April 2020. Goat Island et al. (2006) Creating Physical Theatre – The Body in Performance (DVD), Australia: Contemporary Arts Media. Graham, Scott (2005) Hymns: A Comprehensive Guide to Hymns for Students (aged 15+), Teachers & Arts Educationalists, London: Frantic Assembly. Available at: https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/resources/hymns­ resource-pack. Accessed: 8 November 2020. Graham, Scott (2006) ‘A Personal Rehearsal Diary’. Available at: http:// cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415467605/personalrehearsal diary.asp. Accessed: 11 March 2020. Graham, Scott (2007) Stockholm: A Comprehensive Guide for Students (aged 16+), Teachers & Arts Educationalists, London: Frantic Assembly. Available at: https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/resources/stockholm-resource­ pack. Accessed 8 November 2020. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Graham, Scott (2008) Interview with Mark Smith, 1 August. Graham, Scott (2011a) Interview with Mark Smith, 11 July. Graham, Scott (2011b) Lovesong: A Comprehensive Guide for Students (aged 14+), Teachers & Arts Educationalists, London: Frantic Assembly. Avail­ able at: https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/resources/lovesong­ resource-pack. Accessed: 17 April 2020. Graham, Scott (2017) Things I Know to be True: A Comprehensive Guide for Students (aged 14+), Teachers & Arts Educationalists, London: Frantic Assem­ bly. Available at: https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/resources/things­ i-know-to-be-true-resource-pack. Accessed: 17 April 2020. Graham, Scott (2018a) Fatherland: A Comprehensive Guide for Students (aged 14+), Teachers & Arts Educationalists, London: Frantic Assembly. Available at: https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/resources/fatherland­ resource-pack. Accessed: 8 November 2020. Graham, Scott (2018b) Interview with Mark Evans and Mark Smith, 30 October. Graham, Scott (2019) Frantic Assembly: Always Forward, Never Back, Lon­ don: Frantic Assembly. Graham, Scott (2020a) Email correspondence with Mark Evans, 10 March. Graham, Scott (2020b) ‘The Frantic Method’, available at: https://www. franticassembly.co.uk/the-frantic-method. Accessed on 13 April 2020. Graham, Scott (2020c) ‘Guest Blog: Frantic Assembly’s Scott Graham on New Virtual Resource Frantic Digital’, Broadway World, 27 April. Available at: https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/ Guest-Blog-Frantic-Assemblys-Scott-Graham-On-New-Virtual­ Resource-Frantic-Digital-20200427. Accessed: 30 April 2020. Graham, Scott and Hoggett, Steven (Directors) (2008) ‘Artistic Direc­ tors’ Note’, Othello by William Shakespeare (Programme). Theatre Royal, Plymouth and tour. Graham, Scott and Hoggett, Steven (2009) The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre (1st edn), Abingdon & New York: Routledge. Graham, Scott and Hoggett, Steven (2014) The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre (2nd edn), Abingdon & New York: Routledge.

Graham, Scott and Quelch, Sarah (2002) A Comprehensive Guide to Peep­ show: For Students (aged 14+), Teachers & Arts Educationalists, London: Frantic Assembly. Available at: https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/ resources/peepshow-resource-pack. Accessed: 12 March 2020. Graham, Scott, Hoggett, Steven, Morgan, Mary and Stokoe, Philip (2008). Connecting Conversations: Directors Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett (Frantic Assembly) in conversation with Mary Morgan and Philip Stokoe, Hampstead Theatre, London, 23 May. Archived at: https://archive.org/details/ ConnectingConversationsWithFranticAssemblyDirectorsScottGraham And. Accessed: 30 October 2020. Graham, Scott, Featherstone, Vicky, Harris, Sally and Evans, Mark (2015) ‘Frantic Assembly: Devising and Physicality in Theatre’, Frantic Assembly archive launch event at the British Library, 10 November. Archive record­ ing available at the British Library. Graham, Scott and creative team (2020) I Think We Are Alone: A Com­ prehensive Guide for Students (aged 14+), Teachers and Arts Educationalists, London: Frantic Assembly. Available at: https://www.franticassembly. co.uk/resources/i-think-we-are-alone-education-pack. Accessed: 15 March 2020. Gross, John (1999) ‘Holy Mothers/Sell Out’, The Sunday Telegraph, 6 June. Reproduced in Theatre Record 1999, p. 688. Halliburton, Rachel (1999) ‘Treading an emotional tightrope’, The Independent, 22 November, Features, p. 10. Harvie, Jen (2005) Staging the UK, Manchester & New York: Manches­ ter University Press. Hazel, Spencer (n.d.) Spencer Hazel website (Look Back in Anger page). Available at: http://spencerhazel.net/blog/project/look-back-in-anger. Accessed: 24 January 2020. Healy, Patrick (2012) ‘For This Duo, the Mantra is “Action!”’, The New York Times, 22 February. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/ 2012/02/26/theater/john-tiffany-and-steven-hoggett-collaborate-on­ once.html. Accessed: 20 March 2020. Heddon, Deirdre and Milling, Jane (2006) Devising Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Lavery, Bryony (2007) Stockholm, London: Oberon Books. Lavery, Bryony (2010) Beautiful Burnout, London: Faber and Faber. Lavery, Bryony (2011a) Email correspondence with Mark Smith, 2 August. Lavery, Bryony (2011b) Interview with Mark Smith, 6 October. Logan, Brian (2001) ‘They’re the future of British theatre – and they’re flat broke’, The Independent on Sunday, 22 April, Features, p. 6. Logan, Brian (2008) ‘Stockholm’, Time Out London, 22 May, p. 143. London Datastore (2020) ‘Historical Census Population’. Available at: https://data.london.gov.uk/download/historic-census-population/ 2c7867e5-3682-4fdd-8b9d-c63e289b92a6/census-historic-population­ borough.csv. Accessed: 9 July 2020. MacDonald, Robert (1996) ‘Welfare Dependency, the Enterprise Cul­ ture and Self-Employed Survival’, in Work, Employment & Society, 10: 3, 431–447. Machon, Josephine (2009) (Syn)aesthetics: Redefining Visceral Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mackrell, Judith (1993) ‘High body count’, The Independent, 27 February, p. 30. McPherson, Douglas (1995) ‘Klub’, What’s On, 20 September. Repro­ duced in Theatre Record 1995, p. 1225. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1962) The Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Colin Smith, New York: Humanities Press. Mermikides, Alex and Smart, Jackie (eds) (2010) Devising in Process, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Meyer, Ruth (1968) ‘Language: Truth and Illusion in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’, Educational Theatre Journal, 20:1, pp. 60–69. Mountford, Fiona (2008) ‘Prisoners of passion’, The Evening Standard, 15 May, p. 42. Murray, Simon (2018) Jacques Lecoq, Abingdon & New York: Routledge. Murray, Simon and Keefe, John (2016) Physical Theatres: A Critical Intro­ duction (2nd edn), Abingdon & New York: Routledge. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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RESOURCES

The British Library holds a comprehensive collection of audio-visual documentation of Frantic Assembly’s productions, as well as a recording of a discussion on the impact of Frantic Assembly on UK theatre-makers and educators. This collection may be viewed at the British Library. It can be searched via the British Library Sound and Moving Image Cata­ logue at http://sami.bl.uk/uhtbin/cgisirsi/x/x/0/49. The Frantic Assembly website has a range of resources (education packs, images, trailer videos and playlists) for all of its productions: www.franticassembly.co.uk. Frantic Digital, launched in 2020 as a time-limited response to the Covid-19 pandemic and accessible at the time of writing via the Frantic Assembly website, also offered a range of content related to significant productions (including Beautiful Burnout, Lovesong, Othello and Things I Know To Be True). At the time of publi­ cation, future access to these online materials is not confirmed. You can also access a range of podcasts to listen to company members talk­ ing about the company and its work at www.franticassembly.co.uk/ the-frantic-podcast. There are two videos available on the National Theatre website: Frantic Assembly Masterclass: Building Blocks for Devising: www.youtube. com/watch?v=gUqZPfGIX6U The Frantic Method: Creating Choreography: www.youtube.com/watch? v=V7R_V2iCZoY

180

RESOURCES

Steven Hoggett and Scott Graham discuss their movement work on the National Theatre production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time during the NT video available at www.youtube.com/ watch?v=k2bV75ITXJw. There is a detailed interview with Scott Graham in The Stage (5 Feb­ ruary 2020) available online at www.thestage.co.uk/features/frantic­ assemblys-scott-graham-we-were-the-right-company-in-the-right-place­ at-the-right-time. The work of Frantic Assembly also features in Mark Evans’ book Per­ formance, Movement and the Body (Red Globe Press, 2019) and in Mark Smith’s doctoral thesis Processes and rhetorics of writing in contemporary Brit­ ish devising: Frantic Assembly and Forced Entertainment (2013), which is availa­ ble online at http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/8379.

INDEX

Note: References to the company name ‘Frantic Assembly’ and to Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett have not been included as individual index terms, as these names occur frequently throughout the book. Page numbers in italic refer to figures. #MeToo 48, 154 Anderson, Lea 13, 17, 54 Arts Council England 18, 56, 75 Aston, Elaine 65 authenticity 6, 50, 53, 58, 69, 160 Barba, Eugenio 159–160 Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) 18, 19, 21, 23, 29, 83, 89 Bausch, Pina 7–8, 17, 42, 55–56, 58, 71–72 Bennett, Ed 53 Biggs, Korina 11, 64, 84 Bird, Dick 26–28 Black Watch 25, 31, 33, 108, 163 Bovell, Andrew ix, 39, 51 building blocks 32, 49, 70–73, 99, 120–121 Butler, Judith 54–55, 62–63

Carrascoso, Juan 11, 50 Chaikin, Joseph 75 Charnock, Nigel 5, 86 Cholmondleys, The 13, 58 choreography 11, 33–34, 38, 59, 63, 70–71, 73–74, 84, 95–96, 97–100, 112, 115–116, 117 Cleeton, Andy 54, 69 Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 49 clubbing and club culture 6, 15–18, 34–35, 53–54, 58–59 Cobham-Hervey, Tilly 48 collaboration x, 1–2, 14, 28, 31–32, 35, 36, 37–38, 39–41, 45–47, 48–50, 60, 67–68, 70, 74–75, 77, 80–81, 89, 93–94, 103–104, 114, 123, 128–129, 161 Coles, Vicki see Vicki Middleton Complicité (theatre company) 75, 81, 86, 162

182

INDEX

complicité 58 Contact Improvisation 5, 51, 71 Copeau, Jacques 75 copyright 74 Coupland, Douglas 57 Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime, The 33–34, 37, 38, 163, 180 Davies, Paul 2–8, 10, 42, 56 Davis, Cait 14, 16, 19, 20–22, 49, 64, 76, 84–85, 161 Devaney, Christine 14, 64 disponibilité 48, 58 DV8 5–6, 7, 8, 14, 18, 48, 55, 58, 81, 86, 92, 95, 96, 106, 162; see also Enter Achilles Elliott, Marianne 33–34, 81, 164 empowerment 75–77 end-gaming 121, 122, 123, 143, 144, 152 Enter Achilles 31, 87, 91–92 Etchells, Tim 51 Eurocrash 5–7, 51 Exercises: Quad 61, 99; Slalom 133–134; Round/By/Through 67, 118; Push Hands 118, 135–137, 144; Chair Duets 118, 137; Name Circle 132; Hymns Hands 137 Featherstone, Vicky ix–x, 19, 24–26, 32–33, 42, 81, 87–88 Featherstonehaughs, The 13, 14, 58 Feminism 54, 61–66 Foster, Susan Leigh 61–63, 65 Foucault, Michel 50 Frantic Assembly: The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre (The Frantic Book) 25, 43, 44–50, 54, 66–70, 73, 93; Frantic Method 2, 44, 50, 77–79, 83; funding 9, 18, 22–23, 26, 29, 46, 56; Ignition 40–41,

42, 45, 60, 66, 79–80, 118; and music 1, 7, 12, 15, 17, 26, 33, 35, 39, 44, 69–70, 72, 73, 81, 83–84, 91, 94, 98, 123, 126, 134, 146, 147, 148, 149–150, 154, 155; and pre-show 69, 126, 131; residencies and workshops 6–7, 12, 14, 28, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 57, 76–80, 118–160, 162, 163, 165 Productions: Beautiful Burnout 34–35, 37, 57, 63, 75, 101, 108, 115, 163; The Believers 37, 38, 40, 101, 117; Dirty Wonderland 27–28, 30, 38, 70; Fatherland 39–40, 49, 52, 57, 117; Flesh 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 64, 103; Generation Trilogy see Klub; Heavenly 27, 28, 38, 53, 69, 100; Hymns 1, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28–29, 32, 45, 53, 66, 82–100, 101, 104, 106, 110, 116–117, 137; I Think We Are Alone 41, 42, 164; Klub 14, 15–20, 25, 57, 86, 103; Little Dogs 37; Look Back In Anger ix, 10–12, 18, 28, 43, 82; Lovesong 26, 35, 39, 53, 57, 60, 68, 135; Rabbit 28, 39; Peepshow 26, 29, 70; pool (no water) 29–30, 53, 72, 102, 103, 116; Sell Out 21–23, 64, 83, 85–86, 89, 94, 154, 156; Stockholm 29, 31, 35, 36, 57, 94, 97, 100–116, 117, 135; Things I Know To Be True ix, 39, 48, 51, 53, 117; Tiny Dynamite x, 17, 24, 25–26, 35; Underworld 23, 24, 38, 42, 46, 85; The Unreturning 41, 53, 79; Zero x, 14, 16, 18, 20–21, 55, 103 Gardner, Lyn 22, 23, 24, 41–42, 73, 116 gender 15, 45, 48, 54–55, 57, 61–66, 80, 82, 83, 87, 94–95, 123, 124, 127, 135

Generation X 56–57 Goldin, Nan 30 Grotowski, Jerzy 159–160 Hazel, Spencer 11–12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21–22, 49, 84, 88 Hollands, Sean 60, 79, 80 Hopkins, Laura 31–32, 34, 101, 108–111 Howard, TC 14, 22, 50, 64, 86 Hybrid (band) 35, 84 Hyde, Karl 39–40, 49 Ignition see Frantic Assembly van Itallie, Jean-Claude 75 Kirkham, Steve 6, 14, 20, 50 Kneehigh 75, 81 Lamb (band) 26, 70, 84 Lamb, Georgina 27, 64, 65, 80, 84, 85, 102, 107, 111–112, 116 Lavery, Bryony 29, 34, 37, 38, 64, 75, 93–94, 101–103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 113, 114–115 Lecoq, Jacques, 48, 58, 159 lifts 53, 138–143, 147 Manderson, Vicki 63 Market Boy 32–33, 72 Maxwell, Gavin 119 McCartney, Nicola 23, 42, 85 Meyerhold, Vsevelod 75, 159 Middleton, Vicki 2, 3–5, 9–10, 13, 18, 20, 23, 29, 64, 163 Monkey Thought Translator 49 Morgan, Abi x, 24, 26, 35–36, 64, 94 Morris, Tom 19, 21, 23, 31, 42, 81 music videos 26, 45, 53, 57, 58, 70 National Theatre 29, 32–34, 43, 101, 103, 108, 135

National Theatre of Scotland 25, 31, 33, 34, 108 National Theatre Wales 37 Newson, Lloyd 5–6, 54, 55–56, 95, 162; see also DV8 Norris, Rufus 33, 72, 81 Obey, André 75 O’Connell, Chris 87–90, 92, 93, 94, 97, 100 Oily Cart Theatre Company 61 openness 14, 19–20, 37–38, 41–42, 47–50, 53, 72, 74, 77, 124, 161 Paines Plough 24–25, 26, 29, 33, 87–88, 162 performativity 54–55, 71 physicality 5, 8, 25, 33, 38, 45, 47, 48, 50–57, 58–61, 61–67, 73–74, 80–81, 82, 90, 92, 93, 94–97, 98, 100, 106, 108–112, 114, 115, 116, 131 Physical Theatre 2, 7, 10, 24, 27, 30–31, 44, 46–47, 48, 50–51, 53, 57, 60–61, 63, 64, 73, 76, 77, 80, 81, 90, 93, 118, 121, 143, 162, 163 Pittman, Simon 119 pleasure 47, 53, 58, 60–61, 63 politics 6–7, 8–9, 13, 15–17, 31, 82–83; of the body 5, 50, 53–57, 76, 81, 87 Pook, Marcia 46 postmodernism 15, 50, 63, 71 Rancière, Jacques 77 Ravenhill, Mark 24, 29–31, 72, 103 rebound therapy 61 Riordan, Jonnie 40–41, 42, 60, 79 risk 5, 50, 53, 54, 59, 63, 64, 65, 83, 96–97, 109, 110, 151 INDEX

183

184

INDEX

Saint-Denis, Michel 75 Sierz, Aleks 1, 23, 92 Smith, Fern 2, 3, 5, 7, 42 Stanislavski, Konstantin 61, 89, 157 starting concept 122, 123, 143–146 Steel, Liam 6, 14, 27, 45, 50, 54, 66, 69, 85, 86–87, 88, 90–100, 107, 117 Stephens, Simon 33, 39–40, 49

video, in rehearsal 69, 115, 158–159 Volcano Theatre Company 2–8, 9–10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 21, 24, 37, 42, 56, 58, 82–83, 86, 99

Taliesin Arts Centre 6, 10, 12, 21, 37 Tanztheater Wuppertal 8, 48, 58 Tiffany, John 24–25, 32–33, 102, 108 touch x, 51, 53, 55, 58–59, 63, 65, 66–67, 71, 96, 123, 130, 135–137, 150, 151–154

warm-up 35, 123, 127–129 weight 51, 65, 71, 106, 137–139, 144, 147 Wright, Isabel 26 writing 21–22, 26, 30–31, 39–40, 49, 67–68, 73–75, 87–90, 92–94, 97, 100–104, 114–115, 116, 154–157 Wynne, Michael 21, 22, 27–28, 86, 89, 94, 154–155

Underworld (band) 70

Young, Iris Marion 61–62