Frantic Assembly Essay

Frantic Assembly Essay

This essay will inform about some of Frantic Assembly’s devising and technical features that they have used in some of their plays and successful stage show like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Frantic Assembly main aim as a company is to create thrilling, energetic and unforgettable theatre. The company focuses on new and young audiences with work that reflects contemporary culture.  Their unique physical style combines components like movement, design, music and text in all of their performances. Frantic is known as was of the most exciting theatre companies in the country all due to their reputation.  The company pride themselves in believing that theatre is for everyone and therefore promotes diversity and access in all of their performances.  They also believe that opportunities should be given to all that’s why they encourage individuals who are not yet represented in the arts to apply themselves into the company.

One of the most important features in the artistic process is that all the initial ideas come from the company itself. Some of their ideas can take years till it reaches the stage. It doesn’t mean that their ideas take years of development but more that an idea might be put aside because the company are waiting for the right climate (whether it be artistic or social) before they even consider putting the idea in to their production. When devising, frantic find music to be a huge inspiration to their work, which means they included it in all off their rehearsal in order to enhance their creativity. They also believe that design to be very important in their creative process. They want designers to absorb as much of the creative process as possible, comment on movement ideas, observe the potential character work and get a feel for the aims of their projects.

Even though Frantic were inspired by the company DV8, they wanted to find their own moves and techniques in which other people could use to create the same illusion of extraordinary movement. One of their improvised movements was called ‘Hymns Hands’, due to the fact that they used this movement in a devised play called hymns. The movement is entitled of a person placing their hands on their partner’s body. Both people can switch hands but they always must come back to the main part of the body. It focuses on fluidity between the switching hands and the connection to the partners. To extend the exercise further, the partners do the movements in slow motion but they have to follow the hands moving with their eyes. This makes the partners focus on the control of their movements and the effect of the weight of their touch. It makes the hands have different meaning depending on how they are place and at what velocity. For example if they were doing the movements quickly, it might look like the partners are have an argument but if they perform it slowly, it might look more loving and relationships maybe formed between the partners. Therefore this movement can create intimate but effective movement between the actors.

Another of Frantic’s techniques that are used as part of their building block is called ‘Round, By, Through’. This movement involves two people moving around, next to someone and going through each other. It consists of close contact and moving differently near someone. Their moves could be anything from going under each other arms to rolling around their body but it all depends on how the group have choreographed their piece. To develop this movement further the partners could squeeze the area in which they were working in, it means that the have closer contact and the moves become harder as they are having to move with the other person’s body. They also could add small lifts between the partnerships as long as they smoothly transition the lifts into the movements.

This movement makes the company think primarily on the three universes. The three universes consist of the moment before the touch, during and after the touch. This concept creates a lot of tension on stage as none of their movements are thrown away and they create the focuses point between the two actors. In Frantic’s ignition project, they used ‘round, by, through’ with the three universes in a slow motion which created an intimacy between the men and made a dangerous atmosphere as people were anticipating the next movements. It shows how depending what pace or intensity the moves are performed, the mood could change the style of the piece.

The physicality of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was created by the production’s Movement Directors Frantic Assembly. This mostly included their lifts that they have created special techniques to make the movements look more effective on stage.

One of their lifts is called push hands. It consists of the person flying walking up to their rock and the actor’s around him lifts him up. As this happens the person being lifted pushes down on the rock’s shoulders. This simple movement of pushing down on the shoulders immediately gives the illusion that the actor is weightless or a lot lighter than they actually are. And if the bond between the actors are strong enough the person flying can let go and the will be able to move them around the stage swiftly as if they were really flying.  They did use this technique in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Another of their most extraordinary lifts, which was also used in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, is called walking the walls.  This move is all in its title; it makes it possible for the actor to walk along a wall with the support of other actors. The move consists of a base person who will take all of their weight onto their shoulder, someone to be lifted and a third man who supports the bell when first being lifted up. Once the actor is up the third man can take themselves out of the piece leaving the two men walking the length of the wall. This move only works because the person lifted pushes into the wall with their feet which creates their own gravity that can support the base man. This piece can look effortless if all the actors commit to the move and they keep creating gravity with every step they take.