How a Gang of Droogs Get Fit (Ultrafit) Off Broadway
Nine droogs (and one alternate droog) gathered an hour and a half before showtime at New World Stages on a recent Friday night. To a chorus of syncopated grunts, oohs and aahs, they began to warm up.
Most actors preparing to go onstage exercise their voices, do some stretching or Zen out with peace and quiet. The unusual high-intensity warm-up for “A Clockwork Orange,” however, could rev up Floyd Mayweather for his next pay-per-view.
Jonno Davies, the show’s 25-year-old lead, urged his castmates on through jumping jacks, squat thrusts, burpees, dips, push-ups, biceps work and other exercises, with no rest in between. Then came yoga poses to cool down, as the Foo Fighters blared in the background.
Just two hours later, Mr. Davies, as the ultraviolent teenager Alex, would be leading the gang in onstage rapes and beatings in the theatrical adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s classic 1962 novel, which opens in New York on Monday. The 90-minute show, directed by Alexandra Spencer-Jones, made its debut in 2012 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, with later runs in Australia, Norway, Singapore and London.
Now Alex, who unmercifully pummels his way through young adulthood for sport before eventually finding that his angry impulses have been conditioned out of him, and his fellow denizens of the Korova Milkbar have arrived Off Broadway.
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The most taxing part of being in the all-male cast may be the training. But the results? Sculpted physiques straight out of Men’s Health magazine.
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