FRAY Studio creates for The Tempest
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FRAY worked in collaboration with Intel and in association with The Imaginarium Studios on the production's highly-acclaimed stagecraft, described by The Financial Times as 'State-of-the-art', and by the Daily Telegraph as 'true to the hype of breath-taking order'.
Known to have a considered approach to modern stagecraft, FRAY has designed for critically acclaimed theatre productions including The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. For The Tempest, FRAY designed, produced and mapped the show's rich onstage video sets.
"When we began working on the video environments for The Tempest we took a lot of inspiration from the pastoral work of British and Irish artists," says Ross. "We looked at Turner, Francis Bacon, Romantic artist John Constable and most notably David Hockney.
"Plays can be very literal," says Ross. "We had to build first on that and then design out of it. An example where we could really explore this was the Masque scene. The world of The Tempest up until that point is a muted, moody place. The Masque goes into this mad, huge world of glorious colour and painted loveliness.
"For this, we decided to move from the very Turner and Constable-esque world of the island into a vivid, Hockney-inspired, graphic, bonkers-crazy world. During the scene, magic has to come alive and breathe in the space. It is a brilliant exercise in abstraction. A great show of nature in abundance."
Working with RSC artistic director Gregory Doran, and RSC production designer Stephen Brimson Lewis, FRAY developed a modular workflow for The Tempest that would accommodate collaboration between the production's different creative teams.
The Tempest was originally staged at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon as part of their artistic programme marking last year's 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. The production transferred from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre where it ran between 18 November 2016 - 21 January 2017 to The Barbican in London, where it will run until 18 August 2017.
(Jim Evans)
