Frantic Assembly Essay

Frantic Assembly is one of the physical theatre companies who create memorable performances with lots of energy.  This attracts new and young audiences, the work reveals us about the contemporary society.  Their physical style is a mixture with movement, design, music and text.

The artistic director, Scott Graham formed the company with Steven Hoggett and Vicki Middleton in 1994.  Also they continued as a company with other inspiring artists today. The company has worked with more than 30 different countries over the world. 

Love Song is a fantastic piece by Frantic Assembly.  To me, this performance is so beautifully pieced together.  We start off with a couple in their twenties called Maggie and Bill who also collide with their future selves later on in life (elderly couple).  

Love Song - Digital Theatre picture. Left - Older husband Bill and wife Maggie. Right - Young husband Bill and young wife Maggie.

They show that throughout the performance their love hasn't changed even thought there have been many ups and downs in their lives.  However, there is always a sense of affectionate closeness between this couple.

In my opinion, I loved the way that both couples interacted with each other through the movements either with the opposite age of their partner. The young wife dances with her older husband, this is his memory of his wife Maggie in the past. However, the young husband Bill with his older version of his wife, Maggie. She implies the importance of this decision that she wants Bill to help her solve her end of her illness.

Those memories where something that we can’t always see but, the one who’s in love with the other person and has grown up with that person can see them the way they could be or used to be.  I believe it was shown in perspective to how time and our lives can change but, memories are never forgotten.
  The emotional truth is revealed through the movements of young Bill and older Maggie scene when they make love because love conquers time but, time is running out and it's precious to any one. Like any other couple, they don't want to lose each other because Maggie's illness is pushing them down.

The thoughts and imagery felt like they were depicting the way that they always remembered each other or what they could imagine them to be like.  Time is melting away for the older Maggie since she is making a decision of what happens next because she's very sick.

I noticed that through Love Song we could see the habits or the things that made the person who they were like e.g. women moved her hand over head, brushing her hair slightly.  This action was used for both characters as it was something that the character would usual do. It was recognisable and show that action hadn't changed. 

Another memorable scene was the bed scene in this play. With the younger and older selves diving in and out of the bed in such a way, that it was incredible to watch. I think they were either reminding each other of what's happened or what's to come. So, possibly haunting each other in this dream or nightmare. The actions and the way they moved made me think of a bad dream because they turned into something strange. The music related to their movements building up tension and speed created a new meaning to this dream. 

A few weeks ago, we watched some video clips on YouTube including Frantic Assembly's version of the chair duets. Chair duets is where in partners you work by creating a scene through movement but, it's a different way to create a story.  It's a devising method and I believe it will help me but, also many others benefit ideas to incorporate physical theatre into future performances.  Relating to the music, the speed can relate to the way they act.  http://cdn.makeagif.com/media/10-03-2015/ZXxpl1.gif

For example with this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ_9Eaog2yw these students have used a upbeat video with quite a quick tempo and it shows a story that they keep pushing away or working together but, not all the time.  If the music tempo was different then we would have got a different. 

The chair duets that I did with Rhys was difficult to keep up with but, as soon as you have got a rhythm you remember and enjoy this new technique of creating a story.  I thought it was very creative, you had to improvise but, we had chance to improvise.  I had an idea to hide my face or cover my mouth too since it could mean I didn't want to see something or couldn't talk about what just happened.  The feedback we got was the idea of relationship but, had lots of problems from the actions and the times I kept cover up certain features of my face.  Not everyone wants to the facial expressions so, I thought my body language needed to be clear too. 

The other members of the class's chair duets due to music choice it could end up something quite sweet like a happy relationship or perhaps like a sibling fight. The amount of energy would determine the mood.  However, you need to concentrate a lot, focus and need to have the right rhythm for it to work really well. The main thing to remember is to focus on the rhythm and pattern than what's going on around you. Performing in front of a class audience when something goes wrong showed me I didn't have enough focus but, if I did it for a longer period I would hopefully be remember it much better than I did a few weeks ago. 

There are many other lifts we tried including jet packs or the superman type of lift but, we had to put a lot of trust into each other. Without trust there would be no teamwork. It was tricky because you needed to try and not only lift them for a long period of time but, navigate them. In shows, the actors really bring it to life and feel like we are on an adventure to space with them. From clips that Frantic Assembly performed, the lifts showed how creative and how the sound effects hid the fact that someone wasn't just being carried but, in fact created a story for the one who was being lifted up.

Personally, I believe that Frantic Assembly's methods is something that I would love to explore again or explore some new methods. If I involve their methods in my work it can encourage me to create more ideas for performances because their methods are inspiring and different to what I have found out about other physical theatre companies before.