Jonnie Riordan responded to this question by saying,

‘To me Frantic Assembly straddles both! With regards to dialogue and text, often the ambition is to deliver honest, realistic interactions between characters and then when we want to see a representation of a feeling, or what’s going on inside a character’s head we use bold physical staging to let an audience in on that emotion.’

It remains an interesting question. I don’t see the work limited to naturalism, but I think everything stems from a naturalism. I think of choreographed movement as being a poetic extension of what is quite natural. It is rooted in our thoughts, desires, fears, etc. It is just a poetic expression of that. That does not mean it is beautiful. Poetry is language warped, twisted, hammered into shape to create an effect greater than the sum of its parts. A poem of 10 lines can spawn hours of conversation and debate. I think of movement in the same way.

I suppose that means I do not see the work as abstract at all. I never intend it to be obtuse. Even when I talk about how much information the observer brings to the moment and how the meaning of that moment is partially created by that audience, I am never presenting deliberately abstract work. I always have the intention to guide towards a conclusion about a situation on stage, but I accept that people’s take on it will be informed as much by their history, experience, politics, physical perspective and whether they blinked and missed the crucial moment.

I am generally afraid of sitting under a descriptive label. I don’t make the work with those things in mind and when terms are applied to describe you, they tend to only become limiting. Jonnie Riordan offers an interesting point,

‘Is it possible that your personal definition of the word abstract could imply that the staging is up for interpretation? I think in that sense, that is not my understanding of Frantic’s work. The non naturalistic staging is always narratively based and sculpted by a director who is steering where you look, how you feel and how you interpret the images on stage. The more ‘abstract’ elements of our work are still created with the ambition of representing truth in the performance.’