Frantic Assembly’s Othello

Shakespeare

Frantic Assembly (2009, 2015)

Directed by Steven Hoggett and Scott Graham

Lighting designed by Andy Purves

Projection design by Finn Ross

Photography by Manuel Harlan

I had for a long time wanted to design a dancing set that would interact with human performers. The back room of a sink estate pub provided an environment and a dance partner for the cast of this physical theatre piece.

Mock-Georgian striped wallpaper camouflaged articulating panels, enabling apparently solid walls to wave, ripple and pulse. The space could breathe, morph, respond to action and emotion. When the inebriated Cassio lurches into a wall, it buckles, then rolls and throws him around in a drunken pas-de-deux.