Look Back in Anger
by John Osborne, adapted by Spencer Hazel
Frantic Assembly 1994-1995
See Frantic Assembly’s production page
I adapted Look Back in Anger for Frantic Assembly in 1994. The idea behind this was to gain access to the touring circuit by offering something that was well known, but then attempt to stay closer to the original impact of Osborne’s play by offering something new and unexpected to the audiences.
“Believe me it’s amazing… a fantastically physical piece of theatre” Steven Berkoff, Edinburgh Nights (BBC)
I’d started experimenting with deconstructing dialogue and ordering it in rhythmic ways in The Caging and Chalking Crosses, and had tried out a short sequence of choreographed text when I first worked with Frantic, in contributing a 4-minute performance to the BBC television show Challenge Anneka, broadcast that Summer (see here).
Steven Hoggett and I had been touring with Juan Carrascoso on Volcano Theatre’s production MANIFESTO, and Juan took the reins on choreography for Look Back in Anger (he later also collaborated on scratch). I subsequently took over Steven’s role while he toured with dance company The Featherstonehaughs. This gave me an opportunity to think more about how text and movement could be integrated, experience that was important for developing scripts for later theatre and dance pieces.