ABSTRACT
Peter Grimes is a play. It actually, literally, is a play: in one sense, this is an incontrovertible fact. On the basis of a comparison between this version of theatre and opera, he concluded that their purpose is fundamentally different: theatre’s place is to be precise and intellectual, opera’s to be direct and profound. Fully devised theatre of the kind produced by Complicite and Frantic Assembly, created by an ensemble of multidisciplinary artists given the space to explore a subject through trial and error in order to create a tapestry of vignettes, is often said to have originated in the process by which Theatre Workshop created Oh, What a Lovely War!. Benjamin Britten composed so much music for film and theatre in the decade before Grimes that it’s become an established critical trope to point out ways in which the work integrates theatrical soundscapes and cinematic effects.
