Redefining [Stage] Boundaries

[STAGE]

REDEFINING BOUNDARIES Exploring designer

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changing social backdrop of the theatre world

Armand Agraviador 090163526

The apparent disparity of focus adopted by a plethora of literary work on theatres parallels the different aspects of a concept that encompasses many fields.

Essays orientated towards thespian performance are as available as textbooks on technical design, lighting and acoustics. These two subjects are the bookends on the great shelf of a spectrum of work often put under the umbrella of “Theatre Design” making it more challenging to narrow down relevant material. The problem is that so much of the material available is indeed relevant; it becomes apparent that the demands of certain acting methods inform the layout of the stage and vice versa, similarly types of audience and economic requirements inform the shape of an auditorium.

These relationships show how usage can have great effects on the design while design can equally have great effects on usage - The base architectural coexistence of form and function.

This balance is more delicate in theatres when compared to most other forms of architecture. This can be attributed to the dynamic of theatre designers, management, audience and production companies (including performers, set designers and stage hands) sharing an essential co-dependency. Writing a dissertation on any aspect of theatre therefore requires one to consult and crossreference a web of resources.

The definition of theatre varies from reference to reference, whilst some books use theatre to encompass the entire building, management, services and all; others are more specific, either pertaining to the auditorium and stage as one entity or referring exclusively to the performances that are played on said stage.

Analysis of the subject is equally varied, but if anything this is constructive. Books on the history of theatre set a base for understanding the reasons for design evolution. Donald C. Mullin’s The Development of the Playhouse describes, chronologically, the appearance of new theatre styles in Europe and the West according to the changing social trends starting from the revival of classicism. It is important to think of changing trends in auditorium design as

mere temporally contextual innovation and not as an absolute improvement. We only have to look at the variety of stage and auditoria being built in the last decade to see that there is no definitive end-result of theatre development. One can argue that as some stage-layouts are more common than others, popularity is an indication of quality. However one must remember that social trends are not only dictated solely by the theatre-goer; theatres are businesses and certain setups of auditoria are more financially successful than others. We therefore cannot ascertain the theatrical virtue of a certain stage layout through quantitative means as other factors dictate its success and prevalence.

With regards to nature of research, Harold Burris-Meyer and Edward C. Cole take a very analytical approach to theatre design in the first few chapters of their book Theatres and Auditoriums. The first five chapters centre very much on the experience of the audience; chapter 1, Existing Conditions is a comprehensive discussion on individual auditorium contexts and their corresponding users – it is backed by a large set of grid tables distinguishing the performance types by differences in subject matter, visual components, auditory components, routine, audience and theatre required. The second chapter, Audience Traffic, uses tables to compare the transit and assembly time of audience members for different types of performances, and also what environment the audience members came from. Despite it being inappropriate to rely on purely quantitative and statistical analysis to define the quality of a stage/audience relationship, it is still necessary to consider (at least rough) figures of numerical information to have a greater understanding of the contributing factors. The third and fourth chapters on what the audience see and hear prove to be an essential reference for investigating stage and audience relationship by making pragmatic assessments of design elements present in an auditorium as well as providing, through the use of diagrams, empirical data on sight lines and acoustic waves.

While the analytical and technical chapters of Theatres and Auditoriums describe observable and practical elements that allow us to differentiate the nature of various theatres, Iain Mackintosh’s Architecture: Actor and Audience discusses more

theoretical factors. His opening line states that “Theatre Architecture is more than a frame to a picture”- meaning that a theatre designer has much more to consider than providing a pretty platform for actors to be watched. Theatre is better to be thought of as an exchange. Actors and performers draw from the spectator just as the spectator takes from the performer; it is the spectator that fuels a performance. The audience members may not realise it but they play an active role in theatre, this role is what fundamentally differentiates theatre from cinema where the spectator is a passive entity. Mackintosh describes the theatre setting as “anarchic” which is reflected in his approach to addressing many facets of theatre in the book. Architecture: Actor and Audience contains a wealth of information on aspects of production and stage design that are not considered in many other sources making it and extremely useful resource. However, it is difficult to determine how subjective certain psychological phenomena are and why the failings in design outlined in the book are present in a significant number of theatres.

The case studies from Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts provide rationalisations of design decisions by a number theatre designers and architects.

They are especially interesting to read in tandem to the more analytical and often critical texts by Iain Mackintosh as well as the pragmatic and historical sources mentioned above. The opinions of individuals expressed in the case studies display more of an affection as it regards involvement in their own design, in this way are more relatable as the concepts are visceral and intuitive.

There are a number of books that have not made a citeable contribution to this discussion but have influenced basic aspects of its thinking. Essentials of Stage Planning by Stanley Bell, Norman Marshall and Richard Southern provides a good summary of the practical considerations for building stages and resolving sightlines as well as scenery movement however the book was extremely specific to proscenium theatre and provided little insight into the actor/audience relationship.

Theatre Architect by Frank Matcham and Brian Mercer Walker has a decorative and aesthetic focus which fails to elaborate on building usage, though the visual content is helpful in developing the ability to identify theatrical eras by looking at the ornamentation of an auditorium.

An ABTT Journal on The Guthrie Thrust: a Living Legacy proved especially useful for specific sections of this dissertation. Like the Ideal Theatre case studies, the journal was a collection of almost autobiographical anecdotes by designers on their own work and the work of others interlaced with input from Iain Mackintosh.

The text was easy to absorb as it had a sense of narrative which helped the reader to understand how designs evolved by negotiating lessons learnt from previous projects.

If one is to investigate how actors and audience relate to one another, anecdotal sources are essential to understand the sensations that cannot be predicted through planning theory alone. It is for this reason that I have conducted interviews to support my understanding of reading on the subject.

The current changing trends of theatrical design are, for the large part, adaptations of precedents in European history with only subtle gestures inspired by cultures from further afield. For reasons of practicality, I have omitted any historical development of theatre outside of Europe and the American “West”.

May I also establish that any mention of “actor” refers to actor and actress while all general third-person personal pronouns are expressed in the masculine form (i.e. he him his himself) unless the person is specified to be female.

Many thanks to Mick Way of TheatreTech and Andy Hayles of Charcoalblue for taking the time to answer my many questions on the subject of theatre design which have lead me to develop many of the ideas in this dissertation; and to Russell Light for advice and editing and providing useful sources.

Teatro Farnese, Parma

Prologue

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Act 1 - The Development of the Theatre Building

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Scene 1 - The Ancient World Scene 2 - Renaissance Theatre Scene 3 - Baroque Theatre Scene 4 - English Theatre Scene 5 - The Wagnerian Revolution

Act 2 - The Parterre and the Social Role of Theatre

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Act 3 - The Proscenium Stage

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Intermission - Rationalising the Past

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Act 4 - Open Staging

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Scene 1 - The Thrust Stage Scene 2 - Theatre-in-the-Round

Act 5 - DĂŠnoument

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Scene 1 - The Architect as Behaviourist Scene 2 - The Architect and the Dramatist Scene 3 - The Architect as Facilitator

Bibliography

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List of Illustrations

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Glossary

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Perceptions of the role of theatre in modern society vary greatly. The brutal takeover of cinema as an entertainment medium has left many conflicting stereotypes of the world of stage performance: dated and archaic at one extreme, flamboyantly kitsch, even vulgar at another, limited to musicals – a surprisingly common preconception and, occasionally, pretentious and bohemian.

Though these notions are ignorantly informed and perpetuated through the media of television and film, they may stem from fragments of truth that arise from distinct roles of theatre that have been changing alongside social and political values (and, in turn, design values) since performance was first given a building. Throughout history, the physical boundary between stage and audience has been constantly redefined while the psychological boundary between the realms of actor and spectator has been challenged and blurred. Today theatre comes in many forms and the range of spectacles being staged is increasing just as the typologies of stages and auditoria are becoming increasingly diverse. Whether it is changing performances ultimately defining trends in theatre design or vice versa is what we need to explore to determine the role of the designer in the success of a theatrical experience.

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Scene I - The Ancient World Dramatis Persona Marcus Vitruvius Pollio c.80 BC - 15 BC It is impossible to determine the starting point of theatrical history; most texts begin with the amphitheatres of ancient Greece while others venture into as primeval a precedent as the forest clearing as a site for ritual performance. Though ancient forms of theatre, Western and Oriental, have indeed influenced aspects of modern theatre development, the concepts that governed the design of their structures are not applicable to modern theatre design.

Much of the design of ancient performance spaces worldwide had been heavily influenced by spiritual beliefs, geomancy, or astrology all of which are contextual in neither time nor place.

Greek theatre itself is thought to have evolved from shamanistic rituals of Central Asia and was once a heavily religious ordeal1. Formalised ancient Greek theatre as we know it was sophisticated in its consideration of acoustics as well as audience raking and encirclement, however these design guidelines were set in stone literally and figuratively thus these Hellenistic feats of construction saw few subtle design changes for us to be able to scrutinise and apply to modern theatres. More importantly, Hellenistic theatres were extremely site-specific. The acoustics were not only specific to out-door theatre but the entire form of the theatre was carved out of suitable stretches of the local topography. When extensive farming and trade soon took priority over defensibility, flat river lands became more ideal for towns and cities and theatres needed to be buildable within the urban fabric.

The theatres of ancient Rome were stand-alone structures that were free to be built in any orientation or size to fit into the grain of the cities they inhabited. In this sense their construction had more freedom than the site-specific theatres of Ancient Greece. However, the design of the stage and auditorium was strictly regimented. Roman theatre architecture reflected the society’s love for giving added meaning to geometry and mathematics.

In the fifth volume of his De Architectura, Vitruvius details the specifics of theatre design

Fig. 1. Plan of a Greek theatre, according to Vitruvius Note the geometry created by three squares

1. Rozik, E. (2002), The Roots of Theatre: rethinking ritual and other theories of origin, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

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and covers everything from site-selection and foundations to scene shifting using painted triangular prisms (periaktoi). Instructions include designating the semi-circular orchestra by drawing a circle whose circumference is equal to the theatre’s bottom perimeter and having the stage width to measure twice the diameter of the orchestra. Furthermore, a 12 pointed star made of 4 equilateral triangles representing the 12 signs of the celestial zodiac must be set up to define the location of the scaena as well as the positions for the flights of steps and vomitoria throughout. This is but a small example of the multitude of chapters on how to use geometry to set up a Roman theatre.

While Greek theatres were built into the landscape to be left as they were built for millennia, Roman theatre came in scalable and rotatable pre-packaged boxes that adhered to specific instructions. Since our non-classical cities are no longer so ordered and accepting of neither social nor architectural status quo, there is little we can learn from classical theatre.

Today’s playhouses are highly contextual and bespoke, and they need to be to be able to express what is desired if not solely to sustain their own existence.

We need only look back as far as the Renaissance to understand the principles responsible for changing trends in the design of stages and auditoria that influence the role of theatre today.

Fig. 2. Plan of a Roman theatre, according to Vitruvius Note the geometry created by four triangles and the use of periaktoi

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Scene II - Renaissance Theatre Dramatis Personae Filippo Brunelleschi 1377-1446 Sebastiano Serlio 1475-1554 Andrea Palladio 1508 – 1580 Giovan Battista Aleotti 1546 - 1636 Vincenzo Scamozzi 1548-1616 Following the breakthroughs of Filippo Brunelleschi on linear perspective, the Italian Renaissance saw the first use of naturalistic trompe l’oeil in theatre scenery. The notion of viewing from a fixed point within the confines of a viewing frame was inherent in Brunelleschi’s experiments and is what we define today as the picture plane. This science penetrated into the world of theatre and the planar nature of stage backgrounds began to be broken by framed deep vistas that were soon to evolve into the deep scenic stages behind a proscenium arch. Two schools of thought dominated fifteenth and sixteenth century theatre design: the aspiration to imitate Roman theatre in both form and function and the working within medival tradition to suit contemporary tastes2.

Fig. 3a. Plan of Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico at Vicenza The elliptical stage is thought to be a result of site restrictions though this is unproven

Palladio’s 1585 final masterpiece Teatro Olimpico, a Roman theatre retrofitted into a medieval building was often considered as the pinnacle of Italian Renaissance theatre due to its grandeur and unsurpassed scale for a theatre of its kind3. True enough, it was the culmination of a staggering body of work steeped in classical inspiration however to call it the single pinnacle of the era would suggest a sense of finality in the achievements of Italian Renaissance theatre. This typology of the Ancient Roman odeon was no longer replicated to this size probably because of limitations of the permanent scenery inherent in Roman theatre. In this way, Palladio’s Olimpico could be seen as a hiatus in the history of playhouses as its rigid scenery and focus on accurate archaeology stunted any further development.

Contrastingly Scamozzi’s Teatro all’antica, built around the same time in 1590 in Sabbioneta made every attempt to develop the breakthroughs in the understanding of linear perspective – expanding on the works of the architect Sebastiano Serlio whose treatise Tutte l’opere d’architettura et prospetiva made an attempt to adapt the Roman auditorium and perspectival stage into medieval theatre2. While the Olimpico hinted at the use of perspective in controlled views through thresholds into a world behind the two dimensional scenae frons, the stage of the theatre at Sabbioneta did away completely with the scænæ frons and employed

Fig. 3b. Section through the Teatro Olimpico The enlarged porto regia framed a perspective scene behind the scenae frons 2. Mullin, D. (1970), The Development of the Playhouse, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 14 3. Tidworth, S. (1973), Theatres: An Illustrated History, London: Pall Mall Press, p. 50

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a much deeper and narrower stage to take up the entire staging area. The auditorium of the theatre at Sabbioneta had an aesthetic Roman resemblance though was laid out in a fashion that reflected medieval Italian society; it comprised of the loggia for the duke and his inner circle that was strictly separated from the rest of the audience and it is from that viewpoint only that the one-point perspective setting on the stage can be fully appreciated.

This hierarchically structured space is more relatable to the exaltation of the medieval dais from which the dukes and lords can see their underlings from a higher position.

The construction of Aleotti’s Teatro Farnese in Parma 1618 heralded the beginning of the evolution of a new theatrical genus. Taking the strong perspectives of the all’antica but framing it in much the same manner as the Porto Regia of the Olimpico, the hybrid nature of the Farnese has been often referred to as the first Proscenium theatre in history4,5. The amalgamation, however, extends to the seating area where the combination of the panoramic sightlines of Roman theatre and the social division of Serlian theatre.

These three theatres are the last remaining Renaissance theatres today and are similar in their aspiration to aesthetically evoke the glory of the Roman Empire yet vary greatly in their approach to the stage. This variety represents the experimentation and conflicting attitudes towards how the audience should approach and experience theatre and what devices should be used to enhance this relationship between the stage and audience. In the following chapters it will become clear that, until today, these conflicting attitudes have never been resolved and have only gotten more varied.

Fig. 4. Sections and plans of Scamozzi’s Teatro all’antica in Sabbioneta

Fig. 5. Section through Aleotti’s Teatro Farnese in Parma

4. Mullin, D. (1970), The Development of the Playhouse, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 22 5. Tidworth, S. (1973), Theatres: An Illustrated History, London: Pall Mall Press, p. 65

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Clockwise from top left: Interior of Teatro Olimpico, auditorium of the Teatro Farnese from stage, view towards stage of the Teatro Farnese, stage of the Teatro all’antico, auditorium of the Teatro all’antico. http://www.corocam.it/concerto%20teatro%20olimpico%2003.11.2007%20047.jpg http://musicofilia.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/teatro-farnese.jpg http://theatrehistory2010.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/teatro-farnese.html http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/39518383.jpg http://www.comune.sabbioneta.mn.it/upload/sabbioneta/tourturistico/teatro_02_7729_24.jpg

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Scene III - Baroque Theatre Dramatis Persona Fabrizio Carini Motta 1627-1699

If there was a time period where European theatre designers and critics agreed on a status quo of how a playhouse should be laid out, it is most likely to be the period between the mid-17th century and the late 18th century when the proscenium frame was accepted and unrivalled both in the public realm and in royal court. Furthermore the design of these theatres was standardised by conventions that were accepted by audience members and the aristocracy. Benchmark theatres were emulated by newer ones and theatres began to look very similar as a distinct typology began to dominate. However unlike the standardisation of Roman theatres by the likes of Vitruvius, this typology was defined by what suited the audience and the performers and was the result of many design iterations. The influences of Vitruvius and Serlio were part of a larger picture of architecture that was becoming outdated.

Europe wanted to move forward to do so it needed to evolve away from the unmerciful tabula rasa approach to laying out the stage and auditorium. Theatre was a true matter of fashion and thus was set to undergo a series of contextual metamorphoses.

It was in this era when the archaic semicircular seating was gradually tweaked until it morphed into the horseshoe-shaped and bell-shaped auditoria of whose essence remained, albeit on an increasingly grander scale, from the Baroque era to the vast circular auditoria of the late 19th century opera houses.

Fabrizio Carini Motta can be described as one of the first principal innovators of theatre architecture. His Trattato sopra la struttura de’ theatre e scene published in 1676 has been accredited as the first treatise exclusively on the design of theatre auditoria6. After making the distinction between ancient theatre and 17th century contemporary theatre, Motta’s book acts as a comprehensive guide to all aspects of theatre design. Logical guidance on practical issues, such circulation, safety and acoustic comfort, are still applicable today but it is the more specific guidance he gives on the dimensions of the stage and auditorium that reveal much about the development of the relationship between performer and spectator from that time.

The trattato concerned exclusively proscenium theatre and was widely adopted for the Baroque court. If the treatise is to be compared to the works of the Renaissance, it would

Fig. 6a. Perspective and sightline studies in plan by Motta

6. Mackintosh, I. (1993), Architecture, Actor and Audience, London: Routledge, p.26

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seem that the theatrical trends of the Baroque court took separate aspects from the three theatres of Northern Italy that we have discussed. Most obviously the proscenium frame takes precedent from the innovation of the Teatro Farnese, while the exaltation of the regent on the dais stems from the place of honour in the theatre at Sabbioneta, but curiously the wide and shallow stage of the Teatro Olimpico had made a return to fashion, only this time it was in front of the proscenium arch. [This contributes to the theory that the proscenium arch evolved as an enlarged porta regia, the central door of the scænæ frons as seen in the Olimpico.]

As part of his precise dimensions for auditoria and the proscenium arch itself, Motta specified that the acting area should be between 1.4 and 2.9 metres in depth7; harking back to the flat performances of Roman theatre against a scenic backdrop, taking no precedent from the deeper, scenically integrated stage at Sabbioneta. This hybrid between the Olimpica style stage in front of the proscenium with a Farnese style stage behind – though reserved only for scenic investiture, can be seen as a compromise between changeable and more naturalistic scenery and a more direct interaction with the audience. Whatever this trend’s intent, it created a distinction between an acting stage and a scenic stage, a distinction that would go unquestioned for 100 years.

Fig. 6b. Framing study by Motta

Part of the popularity of this forestage was a matter of acoustic pragmatism. Behind the proscenium arch, voices were audible but muffled and often unintelligible, especially in larger theatres. Proscenium arches were usually wider downstage towards the audience and narrower upstage so that sounds from within or just in front of the arch would be projected by the tapered volume8.

Fig. 6c. Plan and sections through hypothetical theatre by Motta Note the raked stage and ducal gallery 7. Motta, F. C. (1987), Trattato Sopra la Struttura De’ Theatri E Scene, (O. K. Larson, Trans.), Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, (Original work published 1676) 8. Mackintosh, I. (1993), Architecture, Actor and Audience, London: Routledge

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Scene IV - English Theatre Dramatis Personae William Shakespeare 1564-1616 Elizabeth I - reg. 1558-1603 George I — George IV - regs. 1714-1830 Victoria - reg. 1837-1901

In England, the forestage was a defining feature in Georgian theatre. The deep platform stages that extended well into the auditorium were so intrusive that they are often referred to as the “Georgian thrust” though still considered a proscenium layout9,10,11. Shared lighting between the performers and audience further emphasised the collective nature of the activity that took place solely in the galleried auditorium12.

Though Georgian theatre is not seen as a precursor to modern thrust stage, it is arguable that the two share a common ancestor in Elizabethan theatre of the English Renaissance.

It is worth mentioning that while theatre fashion on mainland Europe was dominated by the court theatres that derived from Motta and his contemporaries, English playhouses maintained Elizabethan sensitivities. The Elizabethan amphitheatre was laid out in dimensions of specific geometries that were thought to possess magical properties13, a belief held by what can be thought of as a religion of a mathematician. This was reminiscent of Roman rationalisations (or perhaps irrationalisations) that governed design. Whether this affected the experience of the play either subliminally or in a conscious sense is difficult to determine. Regardless, Elizabethan theatre was similar to Roman theatre in that there was more focus on direct interaction with the audience that was accentuated by the works of Shakespeare and Marlowe; likely owing to a culture of spoken word rather than one of opera.

The attachment England had to these Elizabethan values was probably responsible for a long affair of the teething problems English theatres had when welcoming mainland trends. Aesthetics were simple to emulate, ornaments and decoration in English theatre began to evoke the opulence of European opera. But the growth in scale was not compatible with the profound traditions of England’s drama history and until the late 1700s, specifically in the numerous large playhouses of London such as the Garrick and Drury Lane, the depth of the forestage kept changing as critics argued over the subtleties of the performers’ physical position. An acting stage well in front of the proscenium took the actor out of the scenic

Fig. 7. Cutaway axonometric drawing of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane before its 1794 steel reconstruction A grander theatre of the Georgian era, note the extended “proscenium” forestage

Fig. 8. Proposed plan of the original Globe theatre

9. Mullin, D. (1970), The Development of the Playhouse, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 68 10. Tidworth, S. (1973), Theatres: An Illustrated History, London: Pall Mall Press, p. 121 11. Leacroft, R. (1973), The Development of the English Playhouse, London/New York; Methuen 12. Reid, F. (1996), Designing for the Theatre, London: Routledge, ch. 2 p. 4 13. Yates, F. (1969), Theatre of the World, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul LTD., pp. 31, 39, 53

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frame but made him better heard whereas an actor far behind the frame felt distant from the audience and may have to compensate with exaggerated facial expressions and animated gestures - an odd experience for those nearer to the stage, and one that does not help dispell the stereotype of camp pantomime.

Eventually the tweaking ended dramatically when it was decided, by the fashion of the day, that a “fourth wall” between spectator and performer was ideal and use of the forestage or apron challenged this delicate threshold. Furthermore it was accepted that the scenic and acting stage should merge to become one entity. Whether these changes were more due to the ulterior financial motive of increasing seating capacity in the auditorium is a valid argument. The continual need to maximise the financial capacity of the house became the major influence in architectural developments especially in Britain where there was no public subsidy until the mid 19th Century14.

The advent of steel technology was a double edged sword to theatre construction. It enabled theatres to be built bigger, much bigger. They were impressive but not without issues; the size of the auditoria meant longer reverberation as well as echoes and other acoustical problems15. Sightlines were improved as the ability for large cantilevers allowed for recessed pillars however a large number of audience members were so far from the stage that facial expressions became less discernable – to the extent that binoculars were a common feature in large opera houses.

This distancing from the stage meant that grand spectacle took precedence over the conveyance of emotion of complex characters that was the focus of small theatres. Dramatist Richard Cumberland writes in his 1807 memoirs that they became “theatres for spectators rather than playhouses for hearers [...] The splendour of the scenes, the ingenuity of the machinist and the rich display of dresses [...] supersede the labours of the poet”16.

Since the popularisation of grand theatres, technological advances in lighting and acoustics have sought to compensate for this distancing by creating a perceived closeness towards the stage. Gas lighting meant that the stage could be illuminated brightly and independently from a darkened auditorium drawing focus towards the stage and not the vastness of the space before it. In 1837, the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden saw the first use of limelight in a public place 17 years after its discovery. The bright light emitted by the incandescence of calcium oxide was used to highlight key performers, important especially in large theatres due to the phenomenon of the lit actor being more audible than the unlit actor17.

Fig. 9. The 1809 steel reconstruction of the Covent Garden Theatre (now the Royal Opera House)

14. Joseph, S. (1964), Actor and Architect, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 10 15. M. Way, personal communication, July 18, 2011 16. Cumberland, R. (1807), Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, Volume 1, London: Lackington, Allen, & Co 17. Mackintosh, I. (1993), Architecture, Actor and Audience, London: Routledge. p.35

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Though the visual aid of lighting and its effect on the audibility of the performer created a greater sense of closeness in the spectator’s perceived physicality, the darkening of the auditorium emphasised the fourth wall between actor and audience. By this point the theatres were so far detached from the sensibilities of what Iain Mackintosh prescribes as the first two golden ages of Elizabethan and Georgian Theatre. After the grandiosity of the Victorian theatres – England’s third and final golden age, the darkening of the auditorium was arguably the most significant change to the essence of theatre since the Ancient Romans forsook the great views of the vast ancient Greek landscape for the scenae frons.

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Scene V - The Wagnerian Revolution Dramatis Persona Richard Wagner 1813-1883 Darkened auditoriums lead to a change in the culture of theatregoers. Since such theatres were no longer places to see people or be seen, theatregoing became a much less social affair. Newer theatres began to accommodate this in their architecture and the horseshoe auditorium was no longer built.

Perhaps the most seminal example of these newer typologies is Richard Wagner’s Festspielhaus in Bayreuth. Wagner’s own design took focus on the stage to the extreme through several gestures: Firstly, the seating in the dark auditorium was stripped down to a steeply raked crescent from which no social hierarchy was apparent. Secondly the stage was separated from the audience by a double proscenium which distanced the stage even more to create what Wagner described as a “mystic gulf” between it and the audience18.

Finally, to accentuate this focus on the drama on the stage, Wagner recessed the orchestra pit underneath the stage so that the musicians are obscured from view. The combined effect of these three design moves is the auditorium resembling a modern day cinema; where the visual clutter of ornamentation and the rest of house are concealed by darkness while the democratic layout of the seating and lack of boxes means spectators can leave their social standing at the doors. In the end, the audience member has a direct and independent relationship with the stage.­­ The darkened auditorium changed not only the theatrical experience but also the perception of the theatre world. The low visibility encouraged a level of lewd behaviour and smaller theatres gained a reputation of being places of debauchery and vulgarity which was perpetuated by the type of people they attracted, eventually these theatres evolved alongside cultural factors into Victorian travesties, cabaret theatre and theatrical burlesque. And with the contribution of modern Jazz culture, was probably part responsible for one modern stereotype of the bohemian and highly sexualised world of theatre. The irony in England being that until their closure by the Puritans, playhouses were located outside the city walls alongside inns and brothels; the return of public theatre in England came in the form of European court trends which were seen as civilised and formal; or were they?

Fig. 10. The recessed orchestra pit of Wagner’s Festspielhaus in Bayreuth

Fig. 11. Lithograph of Wagner’s raked auditorium and double proscenium “The mystic gulf, because it had to part reality from ideality” - Wagner

18. Baudelaire C. (1995), Richard Wagner Et “Tannhäuser” à Paris, (M. Miner, Trans.), Athens: University of Georgia Press, (Original work published 1861, Paris)

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“A successful theatre is half a church and half a brothel” - Sir Anthony Quayle

While developments in design of the staging area were largely derived from changes in schools of thought towards geometry, increased understanding of perspective and technological advances in lighting and acoustics. The evolution of the auditorium was governed more by social trends, trends that governed the presence and relevance architectural elements such as boxes, balconies and loggias.

Take for example the Teatro Farnese of Parma where the auditorium is a hybrid of the semicircular seating of Ancient Rome and the elongated vista-centric arrangement of Serlian theatre. The views of the stage must give many an aching neck owing to many of the seats facing one another when the stage is not in between. We can see that its Roman semicircle has essentially been perpendicularly distanced from the stage thereby extending the orchestra to allow more seating with a square view of the scænæ frons. In comparison, the bleachers around the orchestra are less desirable, exaggerating a social divide in the auditorium. The bleachers were not only given to the more common levels of society because of their poorer viewing angles or distance to the stage; these satellite seats provided a great view of the people in the orchestra, those of higher status, the very organisation of the auditorium is reminiscent of a hippodrome, but when there are no horses parading around the arena, there are people sitting †. As with the seats in and around orchestra of Roman theatres that inspired the Farnese’s aesthetic, the auditorium was a place to not only watch the performance, but a place to watch others watching the performance.

The socially divisive hippodrome type layout was a precursor to the horseshoe layout so common in the great opera houses of Europe. These auditorium shapes, as well as the of Elizabethan amphitheatres in England, can be seen in plan as two spectator realms under one roof; the first directly in front of the stage facing it, like the Roman orchestra, and the second surrounding and overlooking the first. In theatres of the Early Italian Renaissance, as in those of ancient Rome, it was the aristocracy watching the performance while overlooked by the masses. This changed in baroque theatres and this area on the ground became known † The orchestra in the Teatro Farnese was occasionally flooded to reinact sea battles on boats.

Fig. 12. The theatre inside the Hôtel de Bourgogne, Paris, with standing parterre

Fig. 13. A scene depicting a dramatic confrontation between stage and parterre

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as the parterre or in England as “the pit”.

In London’s Elizabethan theatres the masses paid one penny to stand or sit on the pit. The Gentry sat in the middle galleries around the stage for the price of two pennies while the aristocracy sat in the top galleries with pillows for three pennies. This pit was a boisterous place where spectators could freely voice their emotions towards the performers.

By the mid 17th Century, the parterre was acknowledged throughout Europe as a place for verbal interaction between the audience and performers, as well as social interaction amongst the audience members. Acceptable behaviour in the parterre varied from country to country though generally this standing area was very much anarchic in that standard practices ranged from quiet chatter to mimicking the performance or calling out at the actors or rest of the auditorium to violent rioting. During this time in France and present-day Italy, the parterre attracted lower-level professionals, labourers, artisans and students due to cheaper tickets. It was an exclusively male domain, with the exception of female prostitutes19. The pit of 17th Century English theatres were slightly more socially respectable than in the rest of Europe20.

The role of the parterre in theatre was to act as a live critic for the performer, performance or royal edict. For the most part this came in the form of harmless booing or applauding, though oftentimes the critique took more intrusive forms, James Van Horn Melton writes that “audiences at London's Drury Lane Theatre expressed their dissatisfaction by pelting the stage with oranges.”21 What this noisy exchange did was make the spectators and performers aware of what opinions were shared by other members of the audience thus bringing the playgoers together as a corporate entity that transcended spatial social divides; a theatrical experience that is only now seen in such acuity in pantomime theatre.

The notion of a silent audience started with the proliferation of authoritative presence in the parterre by the end of the 17th Century; guards to discourage pick-pocketing and disorder and to enforce dress codes and reserved conduct. The 18th Century enlightenment brought more reserved and appreciative attitudes towards the witnessing of spectacle. In 1777, playwright Jean-François de La Harpe proposed to finally seat the parterre permanently sparking debate between intellectuals, playwrights and critics; with some saying that it would encourage rational critique in the absence of heated emotion, and some claiming it was an imposition of the aristocracy on theatrical democracy. Regardless, theatre-going by the end of the 18th century was very much a part of elite society and more bourgeois values of politeness and emotional self-restraint extended into to the now seated parterre, what is today referred to as the stalls – incidentally now the most expensive seats in the house. † † A divided parterre, half standing and half seated on a raised platform, was common in 18th Century Europe owing to Austrian fashion. Central aisles gradually disappeared as central seating became more profitable, this was thought to benefit actors as there was no uncomfortable impression of performing to a split audience.

Fig. 13. A drawing of the 1740 Teatro Regio in Turin, Note the seated parterre, the guard and the serving girl

19. Johnson, J. (1995), Listening in Paris: A Cultural History, Berkeley: University of California Press 20. Hall-Witt, J. (2007), Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London: 1780-1880, Durham: University of New Hampshire Press 21. Van Horn Melton, J. (2004), School, Stage, Salon: Musical Cultures in Haydn’s Vienna, The Journal of Modern History 76, pp. 251-279

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It is interesting to observe how abstract social issues that permeate into the auditorium take physical form in the auditorium’s architectural features and seating. Though the role of theatre over time has changed and oscillated from public forums to displays for social status to escapist portals, the buildings in which we engage with theatre have remained; each one a monument to the thinking of the time.

Every new auditorium built in history has been different from the last. Over time we can see how any structural entity is a development of a previous form though its role can change completely, just as the expensive stalls are the physical descendant of the once cheap pit. Today we can see that the conventions of spectatorship have been turned upside-down; in a physical sense where the once exalted upper tiers, “the gods” have since traded places with the parterre as the most accessible seating area; but more importantly with regards to priorities, where people-watching is now immaterial in comparison to watching the performance.

The quality of stage sightlines is now solely what determines the pricing of a theatre seat and in modern proscenium theatres it is easy to predict the quality of your theatrical experience based on your seat number. Regional variations are also now less discernable as they were in the 17th and 18th centuries, the stoicism and sobriety of English society can no longer be compared to Rome’s once “wildest theatres in Europe”22. The absence of overt interaction between spectators and performer in modern theatre, and the importance of sightlines make it arguable that deciding whether a theatre is successful or unsuccessful as a vessel of experience is an easy task and a matter of pragmatism and a logical layout, but as we will see, the subjective nature of enjoyment and experience complicates the design process even more so in modern theatres, where we can no longer rely in the voices of the parterre to relate to a common sentiment.

22. Feldman, M. (2007), Opera And Sovereignty, Chicago: University of Chicago

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Historic boundaries in theatre: green - scenic realm, orange - performance realm, purple - spectators, blue - aristocracy

Greek theatre, c. 300 BC

Roman theatre, c. 180 AD

Elizabethan theatre, 1599

Teatro Olimpico, 1585

Serlian theatre, 1590

Teatro Farnese 1618

Georgian theatre, 1788

Baroque theatre, 1670

Horseshoe Opera, 1740

Wagnerian Opera, 1876

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After over two thousand years since the first Proscenia of Virtuvian definition - the acting area in front of the scenae frons; and after centuries of mainstream development during which scenery lost the planar quality of the scenae frons to deep scenic stages behind the boundary of the Proscenium Arch, and eventually the acting stage retreated to become one with the scenic stage; It is apparent that the Proscenium, though still “in front of the scenery” as its name suggests, has evolved to refer mainly to the arch itself and the boundary between stage and audience rather than between two stage areas – as in Georgian theatre and more extremely as the only true stage area in Roman theatre.

Despite this change in meaning, it is very arguable that the unbroken historical evolution of the Proscenium theatre since the Renaissance gives this specific typology a certain credibility as a tried and tested, sophisticated performance platform.

Proscenium theatre as we know it today has several defining features: the scenic backdrop, the deep, usually raised stage, the wings and this Proscenium Arch. It is accurate to consider the proscenium stage as a “framed end-stage” and its virtues lay in the way in which it frames the human figure with a sense of familiarity by placing it in proportion to the scenic elements and to the frame itself.

“Whether two or three dimensional, these elements operate within the convention of a picture and create perspectives in which a foreground, mid-ground and background can be understood, again in relation to the figure. The provocative element of proscenium theatres is in the line between stage and audience. Music hall and vaudeville use it to tease and strut; architectural and domestic sets use it as the edge between worlds”23 The framing of the stage creates a distinct boundary between performance and spectator and evokes the sense of “the fourth wall” of theatre theory. This boundary, combined with a flattened, tableau-centric view of the stage and the opportunity to allow the actors to interact with realistic scenery without blocking sightlines associate proscenium theatre with naturalistic sets and realistic props and direction; a quality emphasised by grand

Fig. 14. A set of drawings illustrating the layering of theatre drapes to control sightlines and mask non-scenic elements 23. The Society of British Theatre Designers, (1994), Make Space!: design for theatre and alternative spaces, London: Theatre Design Umbrella

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plays and operas of the romantic era and later by the naturalistic works of Stanislavski.

The concept of framing the performance space has many practical advantages for a production.

Firstly, the frame structure immediately hides the extremities of the stage area creating an area for actors and production staff to wait for their cues. Importantly they have a clear view of the performance thus facilitating the use of visual prompts as well as allowing for improvisation based on situation assessment should a scene go awry. These hidden flanks also provide space for scenic props to be queued before a scene change. Essentially what it creates is the opportunity for preparation as well as means for discreet communication between people onstage and backstage alike. Hidden behind the proscenium frame, the performers and members of a production team can easily support each other spontaneously.24 Secondly, the frame formalises the view of the performance space in that it regulates what is observable by the audience. This means a director can compose a tableau or choreograph a confrontation, dance, crowd scene, dialogue etc. with ease in the assurance that the majority of the seats have practically the same view of the performance area; similarly the interplay between actors and scenery is consistent as the scenery’s orientation to each audience member is consistent.

This visual consistency is known as the Total Uniform Effect and has a number of experiential implications on actor and audience alike25.

There are opposing schools of thought on what should be sought in a performance. Many argue that the Total Uniform Effect distances the actor from the audience or that it lacks the one-of-a-kind feel of an open or arena stage. Nevertheless, there are those who argue that it is vital to maximising the experience of the observer: “Maximum appreciation and enjoyment of, and a very real sense of participation in, the theatre experience by each individual member of the audience depend upon the maximum enjoyment by the entire audience [...] Group reaction to a single performance stimulus is something less than total unless that stimulus be perceived at the same time, in the same measure, and with the same significance by the entire group”26 It is easy to imagine how an experience can be enhanced when shared as a corporate entity. The reaction of the collective audience subtly reassures each individual that their personal response is mutual and therefore relatable. We can also imagine how if an audience member is in one of the few “cheap seats” at an odd angle or with poor sightlines, their overall 24. M. Way, personal communication, July 18, 2011 25. Burris-Meyer, H., & Cole, E. C. (1964), Theaters and Auditoriums, New York: Reinhold Publishing, p. 127 26. “ “ p. 126

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experience will be worsened by the feeling of being “left out” and may constantly be distracted by feeling they have not got their money’s worth.

As auditoria and stages have evolved rather separately owing to varying trends, occasionally these separate developments are unsympathetic to one another and it is important to consider that the design of the auditorium can limit the effectiveness of a design intention with the stage. The virtuosity with which Fabrizio Motta attempted to perfect the usage of sightlines was lost when priority was placed on how the audience interacted with itself in equal measure to the stage. Nowadays, with more social equality and a more apathetic attitude to class systems, the focus is back on the stage; however, we are left to deal with the auditoria of bygone hierarchical times. Despite the proscenium arch creating a uniform effect for the majority of those seated within a certain spread in front of the stage, a horseshoe auditorium inherently has an abundance of these now “cheap seats” in many forms. These are often acceptable to be ignored by directors who focus on pleasing those seated in the “Louis XIV Position”, probably on the basis that one must focus on pleasing those who have paid the most.

In these cases it would seem that the Total Uniform effect is only uniform for those who are willing to pay for better seats and thus perhaps proscenium theatre has in a sense maintained some sense of hierarchy. One could now ask whether a true sense of corporate identity could truly coexist with hierarchy.

Furthermore, in modern proscenium theatres that have forsaken meticulous ornamentation and social divisive seat configurations in favour of a dark auditorium stripped of embellishment to match an austere frame the virtues of a shared experience are lost. With the only colour, light and decoration visible in the acting area, all focus is on the stage. As a result, modern Proscenium theatre has taken on a very cinematic quality. These modern theatres no longer permit audience members to see the faces of their neighbours and people behind them and thus the sensation of being part of a corporate entity completely falls apart. The audience members lose the real-time association and feel like lone voyeurs. The Wagnerian school of thought that led to the popularisation of this cinematic theatre would argue that this gives a better sense of immersion into the performance as other distractions are removed, and it is this sense of immersion that most directors agree is central to the world of theatre.

It is defining immersion and achieving this definition that is the subject of debate in all facets of theatre, from design to acting methods. Only after discussing the different approaches to stage layout, be it proscenium, thrust, arena, traverse etc., can we discuss their immersive success. The question we can ask ourselves in preparation is whether we could prioritise

Fig. 15a. From Burris-Meyer, H., & Cole, E. C. Theaters and Auditoriums Audiences will not choose locations beyond a line approx. 100° to the curtain at the proscenium.

The shaded areas contain undesireable seats.

Fig. 15b. The horizontal angle of polychromatic vision (no eye movement) is approximately 40°

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immersion into the performance on the stage alone or the immersion into the theatrical experience as a whole and how each affects our relationship as spectators towards the performers and also towards the other spectators in the auditorium.

If it is the immersion into the entire theatrical experience that we are concerned about, then even the intermission plays an essential role. While it is a cultural convention that adds a more overt social dimension to the experience, the intermission can redeem the cinematic theatre’s sense of shared experience by allowing a forum of discussion if not at least rekindling the awareness of fellow audience members’ existence; especially now that the parterre has lost its communicative role and auditoriums these days are silent, often dark environments when the curtain is up.

­

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The historical theatrical experience began upon entering the theatre building and continued until leaving it. Being inside the building was being inside an alternate reality where social hierarchy was very much expressed and the entire experience was accentuated by architecture and decoration. Until its disappearance, the parterre blurred the boundaries of activity by extending the realm of spectacle off of the stage and into the audience. It was a widespread sentiment that the parterre provided most of the entertainment.

Wagner’s theatre at Bayreuth challenged the value of the theatrical experience by putting focus on the stage and little else.

The fundamental criterion of what makes any building successful is its ability to fulfil the practical needs of a user. A great building should go beyond this and evoke a sense of atmosphere to compliment and accentuate the user experience. Both the socially orientated theatres of the 18th to 19th centuries and the stage-focused theatres that emerged en-masse during the end 20th century were designed to highlight their respective conceptual partis pris and many of them have achieved their intention proficiently. The debate is on whether certain intentions make intrinsically better theatre than others, whether a spectator should be immersed in the world of the theatre building and all its frivolities or whether the spectator should lose himself in the world behind the proscenium frame. “The suspension of disbelief is essentially a cold and intellectual phrase applying to what is essentially a warm and unintellectual experience�27 -Tyrone Guthrie

A gripping novel could help us fabricate a world in our imaginations though we are aware that the events are not actually happening as we turn the pages. In much the same way as we would be aware of our being in a theatre, no adult in their right mind would believe that the fiction being enacted on stage is a reality. Besides, surely the point of theatre is not to make a convincing illusion of reality but rather to use symbolic re-enactments of real life to comment on its relevant aspects.

27. Guthrie, T. (1964), Theatre at Minneapolis, p. 45, in S. Joseph, Actor and Architect Manchester: Manchester University Press

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To make one more analogy, if we were to examine a portrait, we would look further than the realism the artist has painted it with and look for the meaning the artist is trying to convey. Perhaps this sentiment is more accurate after the invention of photography as this precise visual record leaves less reason to paint a photorealistic picture by hand.

One can argue that the implications that the invention of the photograph has had on the world of painting is comparable to the effect that film might have had on the theatre world. This further reinforces the argument that there is no need for sets to be naturalistic; any need for the illusion of an alternate reality could be satisfied better by the cinema. But whether or not the popularity of film nullifies the role of proscenium theatre is arguable; some might ask why we should distance ourselves psychologically from a drama through a fourth wall when this is already inherent in a movie that gives us a closer and uniform angled view of the action. The answer is in the dimensionality and immediacy of theatre. The difference between photographs and paintings is in fact not analogous to the difference between film and theatre because film, unlike theatre, is two dimensional in projection. A more appropriate parallel for film’s rivalry with theatre would perhaps be photography’s rivalry with sculpture, i.e. no rivalry exists. If anything, the culture of today’s cinema generation contributes to the perpetuation of cinematic theatre’s popularity.

People find in theatre, not only the 3rd spatial dimension but the many dimensions of a live atmosphere that is lacking in cinema.

What theatre directors have realised is that rather than make a futile attempt at competing with the naturalism of film settings, theatres need to express their unique strengths by exaggerating the extra dimensionality that theatre has over cinema. It is for this reason that the end of the 20th Century has seen not only more highly stylistic proscenium productions, but also the emergence of new theatre typologies. In keeping with the parallel of theatre as sculpture, perhaps it is the expressive qualities of a Rodin that theatre should emulate rather than the anemic literallity of a Madame Tussaud waxwork.

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Scene I – The Thrust Stage Dramatis Persona Tyrone Guthrie 1900-1971 After the domination of the proscenium theatre in the world of mainstream performance, the re-emergence of the thrust stage was the most ground-breaking development in modern theatre design. The basic concept of the thrust stage is simple, a performance space that penetrates into a spectator area so that it is partially surrounded by audience members.

One side of the performance area remains connected to a backstage from which the actors enter. In numerous examples, actors may also enter from vomitoria through the audience.

The increased perimeter of the stage-audience border has an obvious practical advantage in that a large proportion of the spectators are closer to the performance area. This means better visibility and audibility and also fewer seats of perceived disadvantage.

Besides the space efficiency of audience numbers in comparison to proscenium theatre, thrust stages offer the economic advantage of not requiring expenditure on many scenic props, if any at all.

Unlike the proscenium, the principles behind the modern thrust stage are rooted more directly to medieval theatre of the Dark Ages without the interference of the restrictive hierarchical trends that dominated theatre in the centuries since. In fact, the nature of the thrust theatre leaves little room for a sense of aristocracy and I argue that in this way, though it is not aesthetically similar, it is closer related in essence to Hellenistic theatre than Roman theatre is. These almost pan-societal principles lay largely dormant in the architectural expression of theatres for centuries until they became the subject of international focus after the opening of Tyrone Guthrie’s Shakespeare Festival Theatre in Stratford Ontario in 1953. †

Fig. 16. A drawing of Guthrie’s 1948 production of The Three Estates, Edinburgh

Guthrie, who had been a renowned English theatrical director since 1926, had designed his theatre at Stratford based on the principles of his production of The Three Estates † Guthrie wished to build his first “Tin Globe” at Stratford-upon-Avon to replace the 1932 Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (built a year before he became director of the Old Vic) had it not been for fear of outcry from the then Governors. ‡ The proscenium stage and broad arc auditorium of the original SMT was “universally praised by the architecture profession and universally derided by the theatre profession” [Iain Mackintosh]

‡ Quayle A. (1992), A Time to Speak, New York: Time Warner Paperbacks

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at the second Edinburgh International Festival in 1948, the first of his famous thrust stages.

The production was held in the Edinburgh Assembly Hall, an imposing Neo-Gothic building with an impressive wood-panelled, wood-pillared hall already complete with deep galleries, balconies, and a raked floor that sloped down to a central railed enclosure that housed the moderator’s throne. Guthrie simply built a platform over the throne and created the stage around it, the audience surrounding on three sides.

The presentiment of success for this layout came from a 1936 performance of Hamlet at its own setting in Elsinore (Helsingør), Denmark; heavy rains forced Guthrie to move the production to the ballroom of the nearby Marienlyst Hotel where Guthrie had an hour and a half to rearrange the chairs around an improvised acting area.28 “Actors and audience alike rose to the occasion. Challenge drove the actors through. I do not know what pulled the audience along” -Guthrie The original theatre at Stratford Ontario was a Greek style auditorium of concentric arcs raked at 21° to 28° and wrapped 260° round an octagonal ended thrust stage. This raised stage had steps down to a moat between audience and performance area while it was connected to the backstage by a façade complete with a balcony and several entrances.

Tanya Moiseiwitsch worked alongside Guthrie in realising what was to be the first of several groundbreaking thrust stages, she used photographs and dimensions of the Edinburgh The Three Estates production as a starting point but improved it further under Guthrie’s guidance.

The steps to the stage were made to have wider treads and shallower risers while more ways on and off the stage were created in order to “allow speedy clearance after a crowd scene, and no piling-up and slowing down of traffic to interfere with the next and probably overlapping scene”.29 The most noticeable innovation in the performance area was Moiseiwitsch’s stage balcony.

While Guthrie’s stage balcony at the Assembly Hall acted as a façade to the central axis of the stage, Moiseiwitsch opted for a corner configuration for the theatre at Ontario. The central pillar and angled faces meant that no segment of the audience was particularly favoured – visually and in terms of performer movement as actors are impelled to traverse at an angle thereby spanning the stage more dynamically.

Fig. 17. A perspective drawing of Guthrie’s 1953 Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario

“The strong statement made by the balcony-angle I believe accentuated Guthrie’s preference for diagonally planned choreography.”30 28. Quayle A. (1992), A Time to Speak, New York: Time Warner Paperbacks 29. Moiseiwitsch, T. (2011), p. 11, in I. Mackintosh et al. The Guthrie Thrust Stage : A Living Legacy, Association of British Theatre Technicians 30. Langham, M. (2011), p. 11, in I. Mackintosh et al. The Guthrie Thrust Stage : A Living Legacy, Association of British Theatre Technicians

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These practical approaches to optimising the stage setup, with so much attention paid to the details of thresholds and solid elements, demonstrate how the thrust stage really focuses on movement and interaction between individual performers. Every subtlety of the entrances and exits of each actor is scrutinised by the audience and the actors cannot hide behind the wings as they would in a proscenium theatre. In this way, thrust theatres have little room for pretence and are considered a more honest platform for performance. It is often argued that this honesty, combined with the proximity of the seats, make the thrust stage more engaging with the audience.

The thrust stage has now become so analogous to the works of Shakespeare to the extent that it highlights how awkward and restrictive the proscenium is for the literary works of the English Renaissance. With Shakespeare’s original works written and choreographed for stages so similar to the modern day thrust stages, we wonder why they were ever moved behind a proscenium in the first place. Of course we must again consider the hierarchical theatres of Europe that pushed Elizabethan amphitheatres out of fashion. Elizabethan theatres were cheap to attend, accessible and inviting to all levels of society and this is reflected in the encompassing democratic sightlines. Essentially this is what the Guthrie thrust stage brought back so effectively into theatre: Democracy; democracy not only in the light of the audience as a whole but also in the light of the audience and actor. The performance and house share a spatial environment and thus an experiential unity.

Sceptics often question whether such a shared experience is truly achievable; Iain Mackintosh writes: “The essential dichotomy of function between the two persists regardless of spatial relationship and that attempts to resolve this dichotomy are futile, fallacious or irrelevant.”31 Fig. 18. End of a performance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre , Stratford-upon-Avon

- A strong statement that relies on the assumption that the house and the performance are intended to merge seamlessly into one another. One can easily argue, however, that despite the distinction between the two enacted functions in the space being irreconcilable – the sense of unity remains by virtue of sharing the same space, the same light, the same sound.

In many theatres, designers make no attempt to disguise the functional separation of stage and audience; the performance area is almost always raised to achieve sightlines and this level change immediately creates a boundary for movement as well as a psychological border between two realms.

Oftentimes a moat is present, an empty ribbon around the performance area, most common when the stage is stepped down to audience level. It allows actors to move around the stage before coming into the spotlight and allows for dynamic access to the vomitoria. However 31. Burris-Meyer, H., & Cole, E. C. (1964), Theaters and Auditoriums, New York: Reinhold Publishing

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when it is not in use it creates is a distinct “no-man’s” land between the main performance and audience, clearly defining that “here is the space to watch” and “there is the space of performance”, not unlike Wagner’s “mystic gulf”.

This would seem to go against Guthrie’s concept of the necessity for audience participation. He preferred to use the term assister à rather than to watch a performance32 but how could an audience assist in a performance when they are kept separate from the actors? The reality is that physical barriers do not necessarily contain the environment of a performance. This environment exists in the minds of the actors and audience alike and therefore extends beyond the stage. The key to this is the beloved concept of immersion and it is down to the producers and actors to invoke an empathic response to prevail over the spatial separation. All theatre presents a more immersive and participatory medium than cinema; the “live action”, the inimitable nature of individual performances, and the honesty the productions add emotional dimensions to the three-dimensional experience. All of this is further accentuated by the thrust stage. Actors are enveloped by the house and seen from many angles making choreography and tableaux more unique, as well as giving a human vulnerability to the actor that draws the spectator in. The intrinsic voyeurism associated with a performance is superseded by sense of participation and this is reflected in the subtleties of the architecture. The boundary between performance space and spectator space, though clearly defined, is still much more subtle than the brutal finality of a proscenium frame; the resolution of the space around the stage, be it a moat or steps or immediate interaction between spaces, parallels more the apron or orchestra in a proscenium theatre, where the stage and audience realms merge. Though this zone is oftentimes considered anomalous in proscenium theatre, it is celebrated in thrust theatres.

Despite not having the total uniform effect that creates a collective experience with regards to sightlines in proscenium theatre, audiences in both thrust and in-the-round theatres receive a collective impression through visibility of fellow audience members across the performance area. Especially in plays where actors address the audience, breaking the fourth wall; the identities of the individuals in the audience are fused into one collective personality. This is reminiscent of the era of the standing parterre, where people in the galleries could look across a space of activity to the spectators opposite and the audience was very much aware of its corporate entity.

32. Mackintosh, I. (2011), The Guthrie Thrust Stage : A Living Legacy, Association of British Theatre Technicians, p. 7

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Scene II - Theatre-in-the-round When we begin to speculate the earliest forms of performance, it is likely that expression through movement came before speaking. Primordial resemblances to theatre came in the form of ritual ceremony and shamanistic rites where the audience would simply gather around a subliminally designated space encircling the performer. The forest clearings, crude pits and circles of rocks were eventually lost to the constructs of civilisation while the notion of theatre was reserved for structures that formalised performances into a stage and auditorium. Even the travelling mummers’ plays and traveling troupes that proliferated as entertainment for smaller towns up until as far as the 19th century often had some scenic backdrop or structure that either framed the performance or at least prevented total encirclement.

The closest historical precedents we have for a structure purpose-built for totally encircling a performance are Roman amphitheatres like the Coliseum, where gladiatorial battles and other unscripted events satisfied the bloodlust of the populous. If modern-day thrust stages accentuate movement and interaction, the arena stages of today push these principles even further. The performers are neither anchored by any wall nor contextualised by any vista or “front face” but are framed by the audience itself. Not only do directors have to establish strong diagonals and well considered positioning, as in thrust, but they have to maintain consistent compositional proficiency with ever-moving actors. This constant motion is required to make sure a balanced proportion of the audience see the performers’ faces to compensate for the backs being turned to much the of audience with an element of dynamism.

The spatial awareness required to engage with a 360 degree audience is something that often comes more naturally to dancers than actors and oftentimes plays in-the-round often begin to acquire dance-like qualities. Few scenic props to hinder sightlines often result in short scene-changes while scenes could merge seamlessly into one another. Exits and entrances at multiple angles mean that a character could enter simultaneously to another character’s exit creating a sense of three-dimensional flow that proscenium dramas could only attempt to emulate. I recall a performance of Sweet Nothings at the Young Vic where the entire play took place on a raised circular platform with fixed furnishings. It was only one hour into the play when I realised that the platform was slowly turning at an unperceivable rate when it became apparent that I was looking at a character through a window frame that was once on the far side of the stage. The practical benefits of this were that sightlines were never permanently obscured; a couch which once blocked the view of the wardrobe would soon be several feet to the left. However the implications on the stage directions are that the proscenium and thrust concepts of “stage left” and “stage right”, “upstage” and “downstage” are not applicable and that, I assume, directions would relate directly to the scene itself; “Jack moves just right of the

Fig. 19. Inca agricultural “laboratories” in Peru were used by the Aymara culture for ritual theatre, music and healing ceremonies due to their shape and acoustics

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bed”, or “Mizi turns in direction of cabinet”.

Though not all in-the-round plays include a turntable, the actors would still rely on what is on the stage for orientation since the layout of the auditorium seems homogenous on all sides. This leads the actor to have a more intimate and real relationship with the setting of the play. Open staging has certain merits in naturalism that even a performance on a cinematic end-stage cannot realize; consider staging a scene of actors huddled around a fireplace. Within a proscenium frame, assuming we want the fireplace in view, the actors would need to be awkwardly angled away from the fire and towards the audience for audibility making the scene accessible but unconvincing. A thrust or arena stage would be able to stage more natural positions of characters around a fire because having a couple of backs to the audience is already accepted.

We need only see a person’s face sporadically to get a sense of their mood and it is not difficult for an actor to frequently re-orientate themselves towards sections of the audience without even moving their feet – our waists, shoulders and necks are more flexible than critics give credit for. On top of this, there is a surprising amount of emotion that could be conveyed by a person’s back with gesticulation and body language, without forgetting one’s tone of voice!

Fig. 20. The production of Sweet Nothings at the Young Vic emplyed the use of a imperceptibly revolving stage so all angles of scenery are visible over time

It is in examples like this that we can see how the actors often get a different sense of what is immersive in the play setting to the audience. Though a proscenium stage can better frame and doctor a scene with carefully placed scenery and false perspectives in order to create a convincing illusion for the audience, the actor is has to take care in staying within these perspectives in order not to break the illusion. At the same time the actor needs to be pragmatic in how he projects his voice to the audience and avoid obstructing views. These considerations often leads to unnatural behaviour that is most noticed by the actor himself.

In open stages, things like furniture can be laid out in a natural way without the need to make a careful tableau. This feels more natural for the actor but perhaps looks less convincing for the audience.

In the end it must be said that the audience allows a lot of leeway in the illusion of theatre because, as we have discussed in the intermission, audiences are aware that what they are witnessing is an enactment. This applies to technical direction as well as dramatic direction. A visible team of stage hands moving props around between scenes is generally unavoidable in open stages due to no means of masking the stage through curtains or profound darkness. Audiences would most likely accept this in end-stage configurations as well as open-stage just as well as they would accept the use of expensive equipment for more awesome scene-shifting. It all depends on what the atmosphere the director is trying to evoke.

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Modern staging variations: orange - performance realm, purple - spectators

Thrust stage

Arena stage / in-the-round

Traverse stage

Extended stage / multi-proscenium

Theatre-all-around / “theatrerama�

Performance interpenetrating audience

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Scene I - The Architect as Behaviourist

It is easy to argue that the three principal forms of theatre that we have discussed are respectively laid out to manipulate the actors’ usage of their platform for performance to engage with the audience. This being the case, it is up to the designer to define the experience of the building users.

However we could turn this argument around and say that it is the nature of the performance that defines the use and shape of the stage, and that the designer merely responds to the requirements of the actors and spectators in an ergonomic way.

When we remove the building, can theatre as a concept maintain its existence? The answer is of course it can. In the absence of a physical platform, a spectator will inadvertently create a fanciful one simply by viewing the spectacle. London’s Covent Garden and The Southbank are steeped in theatrical history, but to understand the dynamics of performance, one need only step into the streets beside the Royal Opera house or the Thames embankment and observe the many performers without a stage. What you will see is how a crowd gathering around a street performer will subconsciously set up a frame around him; the collective mind of the audience will define the boundary between the viewing realm and the realm of spectacle. In addition individuals will shuffle around for a clear view of the performer between heads until eventually the crowd settles into a more-or-less comfortable staggered formation.

The nature of the performance has an effect on the shape of the crowd watching; movement and activity will encourage complete encirclement of the audience while the audibility factor of speech will promote a crescent shape around the speaker’s face. Dialogue between two speakers may once again encourage a circular audience while interplay between multiple performers in front of some scenic backdrop would encourage a crescent again. This organisation is subconscious and instinctive behaviour that requires no instructions from ushers or physical prompts from aisles, seats or stage.

Movement and dialogue encourage audience encirclement

Individual speech and backdrops encourage crescent-shaped audiences

Fig. 21. In the absence of a physical platform, a crowd gathering around a street performer will subconsciously set up an appropriate frame around him.

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Architecture has meticulously tried to prescribe organisational behaviour in theatre plans; to optimise sightlines and comfort, as with staggered seating; or to define the nature of a stage boundary, be it a moat around a thrust stage, or the entrance points into an arena stage. These are examples of the formalisation of natural behaviour and we can argue that they are ergonomic responses that are inevitable in any sort of theatrical evolution. We can back this up by looking at how theatres have evolved independently yet similarly on opposite sides of the cultural world. In the late 16th Century, a brief glance at a Nogaku theatre of Muromachi Japan would show an architecture that is very comparable to the playhouses of First Elizabethan England; there are indeed significant structural and emblematic differences which are cultural features, however the essence of a sheltered thrust stage raised above a grounded audience is common to both.†

We can see the roots of stage plans in the shapes left by the spectator crowds, the thrust from the void in the crescent, the in-the-round from the hole in the circle. One can argue that the proscenium is the least natural of theatre typologies as it stems from a mindset of rationality and artistic science; we can see how the proscenium stage has always been associated with cultural pretence (reflecting its scenic pretence) and the conventions of complex society.

Fig. 22. Japanese Nogaku (Noh) theatre

We can also see how Wagnerian attempts at a voyeuristic escapism are futile because a crowd of spectators will always behave as they would on the streets of Covent Garden, as a collective mind. I argue that the role of the theatre designer is not to try to impose an experience on the users as it may seem (and as many architects seem to believe); the role of a theatre designer is to work with the natural behaviour of a crowd and improve it, in ways a crowd would not improvise, for the maximum appreciation of a spectacle; a spectacle whose nature should be defined by the director.

To achieve this, the designer needs to consider the vertical plane of the auditorium and stage topography as well as the horizontal. A crowd on a street is often inconvenienced by the flat pavement. The designer needs to consider the raking of the stage and audience, † It is interesting to note that Kabuki theatre, which features a pictorial frame, developed around the same time as proscenium theatre became widespread in England – a time when Japan was under the isolationist rule of the Tokugawa shogunate with minimal communication with the rest of the world. The organisation of Kabuki theatres is remarkably similar to the Georgian playhouse, complete with viewing galleries on three sides around a parterre Similarly, Kabuki theatres were located in “red-light districts” and invited behaviour shunned by the upper classes‡, though investigating the cross-cultural parallels is a topic for another dissertation

Fig. 23. Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London’s Southbank

‡ Ortolani, B. (1995) The Japanese Theatre: From Shamanistic Ritual to Contemporary Pluralism, Princeton: Princeton University Press

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and perhaps the presence of balconies in both realms, to address the practical needs of an audience. Practicality extends beyond an unobstructed view of the stage. A visible body of a performer is not enough; 20 metres is established in the trade as the minimum point at which eyes are discernible and expression of emotion has the most impact33.

“The paradox that with uniformly excellent sightlines are invariably bad theatres, disliked by both actor and audience, is an uncomfortable by empirically demonstrable truth.”34 - Iain Mackintosh

A good designer considers the psychological needs on an audience as well as the practical, and often a perfectly practical auditorium is detrimental to its atmosphere.

Balconies stacked too close vertically can cause a spectator’s view to feel limited and even claustrophobic, despite a full view of the stage extents, because of the looming mass overhead; this is known as the letterbox effect and is one example of the lack of consideration for the auditorium’s vertical relationship with the stage. Consideration must be applied to the angle at which the actor is viewed; if the gravity of the audience is located above the actor’s eye line (considered 5° above horizontal35), the audience is put in a collective position of dominance and will contemplate the performer critically as a director would in rehearsal. The actor’s position is subject to weakening should the audience’s attention waver . The chin-up acting that comes with a lowered stage is inherent in ancient Greek theatre and is a stylistic choice in many modern theatres-in-the-round; it highlights the vulnerability of the performer and the honesty of the staging, but can create a sense of aesthetic distance from the performance regardless of physical proximity35.

If the actor is above the audience, he is in control and can more readily elicit responses as was the case with the parterre and with many thrust stages where actors often address the audience directly. The maximum tolerable vertical angle of sightline between performer and spectator is considered to be 30° from the horizontal33,36.

Ultimately, it is up to the actors to “work the audience” by using eye contact to elicit individual responses on many tiers to unify the audience. Shakespeare’s asides were written to be directed at specific parts of the audience throughout the play, bringing the audience together by making light of their differences. This was probably more effective when theatres were organised in a more class specific way but it demonstrates how given a suitable architectural platform, actors can easily grab the attention of any audience – no matter how socially divided it is.

Fig. 24. From Burris-Meyer, H., & Cole, E. C. Theaters and Auditoriums The angle above which the ability to recognise familiar shapes falls off very rapidly is 30°

33.

34.

35.

36.

M. Way, personal communication, July 18, 2011 Mackintosh, I. (1993), Architecture, Actor and Audience, London: Routledge, p. 156 Condee, W. in Mackintosh, I. (1993), Architecture, Actor and Audience, London: Routledge, p. 138 Burris-Meyer, H., & Cole, E. C. (1964), Theaters and Auditoriums, New York: Reinhold Publishing, p. 68

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Scene II - The Architect and the Dramatist Dramatis Personae Constantin Stanislavski 1863-1938 Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956 From what medium would an audience, in pursuit of a gripping live performance, gain the most satisfaction? Is it the sophistication of the formalised frame that Proscenium theatre has developed for centuries, or the rawness of arena staging - arguably the purest layout of spectatorship? Again the debate lies in the nature of immersion that should be sought and what sort of response should be elicited from an audience.

The theatre building is ultimately only a platform for expression, and though the architecture influences its interpretation, the true art is on the stage. In order to get a pure sense of the artistic intentions that architecture strives to parallel, we must look to the work of theatre directors. In this chapter I present two conflicting ideologies that have greatly influenced the range of dramatic intentions in modern theatre.

The late 19th Century to early 20th Century saw the rise of the naturalistic movement in European drama influenced by Charles Darwin and the popularisation of rationalistic thinking.37 The movement sought the creation of a perfect illusion of reality on stage in both scenic investiture and in the drama itself: scenery was detailed and exclusively three dimensional and props were real objects, moreover, plays maintained a secular world view devoid of ghosts or gods and were, for the large part, set in present day in a relatable location.

Director Constantin Stanislavski built on the naturalistic movement when creating his famous system of method acting, which intended to go beyond replicating human emotion by fusing the actors to their roles. Naturalistic theatre leaves no room for poetry or the rhythmic verse of Shakespeare as this is not considered natural speech. Similarly the characters are anchored to their setting and are not allowed to call attention to the fiction or acknowledge the performance element by addressing the audience, in this way the world created on the stage can be observed form a distance as a convincing alternate reality.38 Naturalistic theatre parallels the physical intention of the Wagnerian proscenium in that it leads a spectator into a predetermined understanding of the drama that is dictated to every member of the audience in a sort of total uniform interpretation. The creation of an untouchable but observable world is comparable to the psychological boundary of the

37. Williams, R. (1976) Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana, p.217 38. Counsell, C. (1996) Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre. London/ New York: Routledge

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proscenium frame with the audience only able to passively empathise with the emotion on stage.

The theatrical movement of Epic Theatre developed as a reaction to the naturalistic movement and culminated in the work of director and playwright Bertolt Brecht, whose socio-political focus was not expressible in the escapist fiction of naturalistic theatre. In complete contrast to the naturalist movement, Brechtian theatre employed abstracted and minimal scenery with focus on the actors and key props. This avoidance of illusionary sets reflected the view that the spectator was not meant to identify emotionally with the characters or action on stage, but should rather be critical of the performance and use this to reflect on themselves and the world outside the play. Epic theatre further emphasised the farce of illusion with the use of: harsh lighting, explanatory placards, actors playing multiple roles and often directly addressing the audience, and occasionally actors would sit in and amongst the audience.39 This sense of context the performance has in the reality of the auditorium and the reality of the world outside has been led to Epic Theatre being described by Brecht as dialectical realism.

The breaking down of the fourth wall in Brechtian Epic theatre is an extreme form of encouraging the audience to take an active role in the performance they are watching, each spectator interprets the drama in a different way and we know that these are intents that are shared by the design of a thrust stage.

The naturalistic movement and Epic Theatre movement seem be diametrically opposed in their methodologies for staging and acting but they do share in the aim to achieve what each define as realism. Stanislavski’s plays define realism in a literal replication of reality confined within the strict boundary of the stage while Brecht’s plays are contextualised in the reality of the existing world of which the audience is made explicitly aware. This fundamental difference of interpretation means one cannot use level of realism to define the excellence of a play but should rather assess how well the director has communicated his intent. In a similar way, one cannot ultimately decide which stage type is superior because they are designed to communicate different things.

We cannot criticise the qualities that arise from the layout of stage and auditorium without the context of the performance it is hosting. After all, the theatre building is but a platform for the art and not the art itself; in the end it is the performance that entertains the audience and architecture can only do its best to facilitate and accentuate this entertainment.

The designer’s role is to compliment the role of the director and though it is ultimately up to the director to use the stage effectively, it is up to the designer to make sure the audience can capitalise the directors efforts.

Fig. 25. A performance of Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children directed by Richard Schechner at the Performing Garage, NYC, 1974

39. Brecht, B. (1964) Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, (J. Willett, trans.) London: Methuen

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Scene III - The Architect as Facilitator

The problem that designers face when building new theatres is that there are few good precedents to emulate. That is not to say that good theatres have not been built, many certainly have. The issue is of appropriateness. Successful theatres are successful because of how skilfully they respond to the context they exist in. Inwardly they address the needs of the types of production company that the theatre plans to host whilst making sure that the audience have a heightened, often thematic experience. Despite the fundamental importance that dramatists have in addressing the central experience of the actor- audience relationship, theatre architects often fail to consult those who have the most informed opinions, that is to say, the theatre directors, theatre technicians and even the actors. Until the banning of theatre by the puritans, Elizabethan theatre was considered to be achieving its height of sophistication in engaging with the audience – probably because it was the playwrights who dictated much of the design process.

The bespoke specificity that breeds great theatres also applies outwardly in being sensitive to the immediate culture of the neighbourhood as well as the fashion of the time.

The cornucopia of production styles, audience types, classes and neighbourhood cultures in one city alone make it almost impossible to drag and drop a design for a theatre that was contextually successful in, say, Islington and expect it to be as successful in Stratford-uponAvon. Equally, there is no true way to time-proof a theatre and thus the architect should never assume that their design will hold for decades.

Despite the lack of applicable successful precedents, designers devising an ideal theatre have many past examples of unsuccessful theatres to learn from. These theatres often fail at keeping the audience engaged with the performance as they ignore the principal needs of the dramatist and the essence of theatrical production is easily lost by unsympathetic ambitions of an architect.

D.C. Mullin highlights this well by identifying six common flawed approaches to the designing of a theatre40: the first being approaching theatre as archaeology, or “designing a theatre to conform to a stylistic revival”. There are many modern examples of this in American open air “Globe Theatres” where a sense of Shakespearian occasion is evoked by period architectural detail embellishing an Elizabethan tiring house behind the stage, despite having a fan-shaped auditorium in place of a parterre or any encirclement. Effectively, these theatres

Fig. 26. The third “Elizabethan Theatre” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

40. Mullin, D. (1970), The Development of the Playhouse, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 2-4

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completely miss the mark of the plays they cater for and, moreover, leave no opportunity for any other repertoire. We have already established how the restrictive design of Palladio’s Teatro Olimpica stunted further development because of its finality.

Compare these Elizabethan-esque theatres to Guthrie’s Festival theatre in Ontario, which is vastly more successful at embodying the immediacy of Shakespeare by much subtler means, while still being a successful stage for other performances. Here we can see how vertical consideration of the auditorium layout can embody historical concepts.

“These levels replicated philosophically, rather than precisely in a topographical sense, those of the Elizabethan stage. They had been the product of the meeting of renaissance notions of spatial symbolism and medieval traditions of hierarchical levels on both heaven and earth or as Brook described the Elizabethan stage in “The Empty Space”, “a diagram of the universe as seen by the sixteenth-century audience – three levels, separate yet intermingling – a stage that was a perfect philosopher’s machine”41

The second error outlined was addressing theatre as a rational science; “designing a theatre according to a [geometric/mathematical] principle to which everything must be accommodated […] Architects who design according to formulae naively expect a theatre designed according to a fixed principle to be right”42. This faith in geometry may have served in helping Renaissance thinkers to rationalise the ancient world that they admired so much, but today strong geometries are nothing but dominating and detract from the performance.

The third error is regarding theatre as a classroom; “designing a theatre according to social desires which are irrelevant to dramatic production.” This refers to the enormous proscenium stages that are often associated with dictatorial governments, such as the 3rd Reich, Stalinist CPSU, Maoist CCP and more recently in the auditoria of Pyongyang. The size and scale of these structures reflect the grandiose productions of mass theatre that aim to act as a stimulating rally for the vast audience. In Soviet Russia, the seating numbers intended to provide “cultural enrichment of the working class” and a sense of inclusivity in a socialist society. Ironically these vast auditoria and panoramic proscenium frames became a widespread trend throughout the United States and post-war Canada43; though the intent may differ, the result is still theatre where the human being is entirely lost to scale and actors look like gesticulating peanuts.

Error number four is the notion of the mechanical playhouse; “designing theatre as a production machine”. This can be detrimental on two levels; the more harmless of which

Fig. 27a. (above left) President Harry S. Truman speaking in in 1948.

Fig. 27b. (above right) Political meetings in U.S.S.R, 1962-1963

Fig. 28. (left) Sketches by designer Jo Mielziner of the adaptable Vivian Beaumont Theater, which he designed with architect Eero Saarinen, in proscenium mode and in thrust mode.

Note the compromise of the seating arrangement. See fig. 28.

41. Mackintosh, I. (1993), Architecture, Actor and Audience, London: Routledge, p137 42. Mullin, D. (1970), The Development of the Playhouse, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 3 43. Guthrie, T. (1964), Theatre at Minneapolis, in S. Joseph, Actor and Architect Manchester: Manchester University Press

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is when elaborate methods of scene-shifting become the focus of certain productions. The situation that often leads to bad theatre is when the elaborate mechanisms extend past the set into the stage structure and audience so that it is the focus of the architecture. The 1965 Vivian Beaumont Theatre in New York’s Lincoln Centre put emphasis on the design of expensive mechanical equipment that compromised between thrust and proscenium stages.

After its completion it was generally considered to be unsatisfactory as either type. Despite this, theatre designers have persevered in achieving a truly flexible theatre space. I recall a TEDx talk in which Joshua Prince-Ramus (of Rem Koolhaas /OMA) boasts about the design process behind his Wyly theatre in Dallas, in which the mechanical seating that can be organised into vague proscenium, thrust and arena layouts with the touch of a button.44 The engineering of these mechanisms is impressive but the seating in any arrangement seems so unsympathetic and brutal that it would not surprise me to find that people would always feel that the theatre they are experiencing is not quite thrust or not quite proscenium, but rather a performance in a utilitarian warehouse.

Fig 29. Auditorium of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, New York

Error five concerns the treatment of theatre as sculpture; when architects neglect the occupancy of the building for the sake of monumentality. The most obvious example of this would be Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, whose internal volumes were determined by the building’s iconic external form. The building was designed to be viewed outside and particular angles inside though in the end it was the acoustics that suffered.

The sixth and final error that Mullin mentions is designing theatre as scaffold; which I interpret to refer to theatres that are minimally designed to allow for flexibility. In a similar way to the mechanical playhouse, adaptable theatres fail because in their attempts to satisfy multiple staging needs, they end up as jacks of all trades and masters at none. Examples of this in proscenium theatre are the vast concert halls of western Canadian cities which Tyrone Guthrie describes as “all-purpose halls which are, a priori, no-purpose halls”.45

Iain Mackintosh criticizes theatres that lack balconies in the auditorium and permanent structures on stage in order to cater for a changing repertoire arguing that it drains the theatre space of tension. This is often the case with adaptable theatres that dully play endless permutations in the horizontal plane, ignoring vertical displacement.

“Hierarchy is the antithesis of uniformity, in theatre architecture, as in all architecture, uniformity is dispiriting.”46 -Iain Mackintosh

Fig. 30. Proscenium and Thrust configurations of the Wyly theatre, Dallas

44. http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_prince_ramus_building_a_theater_that_remakes_itself.html 45. Guthrie, T. (1964), Theatre at Minneapolis, p. 33, in S. Joseph, Actor and Architect Manchester: Manchester University Press 46. Mackintosh, I. (1993), Architecture, Actor and Audience, London: Routledge, p139

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All six errors are examples of theatre architecture being distracted from its principal purpose: to provide the user (spectator and performer) with a suitable and comfortable space that compliments the nature of a performance thereby allowing immersion into the theatre experience. After all, ignoring even a small part of the visceral intention of any specific production in favour of a superficial architectural device, be it an impressive sculptural shell or high-tech mechanisms, would be ignoring a significant part of theatre - perhaps the most significant part. What attracts people to theatre is the human element, the meeting of the realms of performance and spectatorship. “Theatre guides” and “theatre reviews” online and in magazines are never about the theatre buildings but are about the performances that takes place within them. For this reason I argue that theatre architects should have the mindset of curator rather than creator, for it is their responsibility to house unique works of art and maintain the integrity of something so fragile in nature; the engagement of the two realms and the fleeting relationship between strangers.

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Appleton, Ian. Buildings for the Performing Arts: A Design and Development Guide, Architectural Press 2008

Mullin, Donald C. The Development of the Playhouse, Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1970

Baudelaire, Charles. Richard Wagner Et “Tannhäuser” à Paris, (Margaret Miner, Trans.), Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995 (Original work published 1861, Paris)

Mulryne, Ronnie & Shrewing, Margaret. Making Space for Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, 1995

Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic, (John Willett, Trans.) London: Methuen, 1964

Ortolani, Benito. The Japanese Theatre: From Shamanistic Ritual to Contemporary Pluralism, Princeton: Princeton University ,Press 1995 Payne, Rachel M. Meiji Theatre Design, Nissan Occasional Paper Series, 2003

Burris-Meyer, Harold, & Cole, Edward C. Theaters and Auditoriums, New York: Reinhold Publishing, 1964 Counsell, Colin. Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre, London/New York: Routledge, 1996

Pilbrow, Richard. A Theatre Project, New York: PLASA media inc. 2011 Quayle Anthony. A Time to Speak, New York: Time Warner Paperbacks, 1992 Reid, Francis. Designing for the Theatre, London: Routledge, 1996

Cumberland, R. Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, Volume 1, London: Lackington, Allen, & Co, 1807 Hall-Witt, Jennifer. Fashionable Acts: Opera and Elite Culture in London: 1780-1880, Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2007

Rozik, Eli. The Roots of Theatre: rethinking ritual and other theories of origin. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002 Saunders, George. Treatise on Theatres, Manchester NH: Ayer Publishing, 1968, pl. 2, p. 95

Ham, Roderick. Theatres: Planning guidance for design and adaptation, Architectural Press, 1988 Ideal Theatre: Eight Concepts, New York: American Federation of Arts, 1962 Johnson, James. Listening in Paris: A Cultural History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995 Joseph, Stephen et al. Actor and Architect, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964

The Society of British Theatre Designers. (1994). Make Space!: design for theatre and alternative spaces.

London: Theatre Design Umbrella, 1994 Tidworth, Simon. Theatres: An Illustrated History, London: Pall Mall Press, 1973

Leacroft , Richard. The Development of the English Playhouse, London/New York: Methuen, 1973

Van Horn Melton, James. School, Stage, Salon: Musical Cultures in Haydn’s Vienna. The Journal of Modern History, 2004

Mackintosh, Iain et al.The Guthrie Thrust Stage : A Living Legacy. Association of British Theatre Technicians , 2011

Vitruvius, “Ten Books on Architecture” (Ingrid D. Rowland & Thomas Noble Howe, Trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001 (Original work published circa 20 BC)

Mackintosh, Iain. Architecture, Actor and Audience. London: Roteledge, 1993

Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana, 1976

McNamara, Brooks;Schechner, Richard;Rojo, Jerry. Theatres, Spaces, Environments, New York: Drama Book Specialists, 1975

Yates, Frances A. Theatre of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul LTD, 1969

Motta, Fabrizio Carini Trattato Sopra la Struttura De’ Theatri E Scene, (Orville. K. Larson, Trans.), Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987 (Original work published 1676)

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Acknowlegements page. . [online image] http://www.lorenoconfortini.it/pic/140/parma_teatro_ farnese.html Figures: 1. Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, vol. 5, [online image] http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Texts/ Vitruvius/Book5.html

17. Mackintosh, Iain et al.The Guthrie Thrust Stage : A Living Legacy. Association of British Theatre Technicians , 2011, p. 10 18. Mackintosh, Iain et al.The Guthrie Thrust Stage : A Living Legacy. Association of British Theatre Technicians , 2011, p. 28

2. Saunders, George. Treatise on Theatres, Manchester NH: Ayer Publishing, 1968, pl. 2, p. 95,

19. [online image] at Rediscover Machu Pichu: http://www.rediscovermachupicchu.com/moray.htm

3a. Tidworth, Simon. Theatres: An Illustrated History, London: Pall Mall Press, 1973, pl. 43, p. 51,

20. [online image] http://www.youngvic.org/archive/sweet-nothings

3b. [online image]at Renaissance Theatre: Italy: http://www3.northern.edu/wild/th100/Olimpico6.jpg

21. Richard Southern in Joseph, Stephen et al. Actor and Architect, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964, fig. 2-4, pp. 48, 49.

4. Izenour, [online image] at Kings College Theatron directory: http://www.kvl.cch.kcl.ac.uk/ THEATRON/theatres/sabbioneta/assets/images/sabimg26.html 5. Izenour, [online image] at Kings College Theatron directory: http://www.kvl.cch.kcl.ac.uk/ THEATRON/theatres/farnese/assets/images/farimg36.html 6. Motta, Fabrizio Carini Trattato Sopra la Struttura De’ Theatri E Scene, Milan: Edizioni Il Polifilo, 1972, fig. 1-5, 8, pp. 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 33

22. Richard Southern in Joseph, Stephen et al. Actor and Architect, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1964, fig. 6, p. 55 23. Mackintosh, Iain et al.The Guthrie Thrust Stage : A Living Legacy. Association of British Theatre Technicians , 2011, p. 19 24. Burris-Meyer, Harold, & Cole, Edward C. Theaters and Auditoriums, New York: Reinhold Publishing, 1964, pp. 64, 68, 69

7. Leacroft , Richard. The Development of the English Playhouse, London/New York: Methuen, 1973 25. [online image] http://www.rojo.uconn.edu/environmental/Mothercourage.html 8. Yates, Frances A. Theatre of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul LTD, 1969, p. 132 26. [online image] http://www.myosf.org/connect/?page_id=105 9. [online image] at Grosvenor Prints: http://www.grosvenorprints.com/jpegs/10225.jpg 27a. [online image] http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/displayimage.php?pointer=3032 10. [online image] at Kings College Theatron directory: http://www.kvl.cch.kcl.ac.uk/THEATRON/ theatres/bayreuth/assets/images/bayimg14.html

27b. [online image] http://popartmachine.com/art/LOC+1099159/function.pg-connect from: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

11. [online image] at Hekeman Digital Archive: http://library.calvin.edu/hda/node/1928 12. [online image] http://lewebpedagogique.com/simplifier/tag/hotel-de-bourgogne/ 13. [online image] http://lewebpedagogique.com/simplifier/tag/hotel-de-bourgogne/ 14. [online image] http://www.sewwhatinc.com/description_stage.php [online image] http://www.theatrequip.com.au/stage_layout.html 15. Burris-Meyer, Harold, & Cole, Edward C. Theaters and Auditoriums, New York: Reinhold Publishing, 1964, p. 64 16. Mackintosh, Iain et al.The Guthrie Thrust Stage : A Living Legacy. Association of British Theatre Technicians , 2011, p. 9

28. Mackintosh, Iain et al.The Guthrie Thrust Stage : A Living Legacy. Association of British Theatre Technicians , 2011, p. 12 29. Postcard, listing accesed April 2012, [online image] http://www.playle.com/listing. php?PHPSESSID=a&i=IVANHOE132972 30. Photographs by Iwan Baan and Ari Burling http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/portfolio/archives/1002wyly/5.asp http://www.architizer.com/en_us/firms/view/ari-burling-architectural-photography/5516/ http://designwire.interiordesign.net/projects/3202/aia-names-2011-honor-award-winners

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18th Century Enlightenment: a secular cultural movement of intellectuals in Europe and America, whose purpose was to reform society and advance knowledge assister à: (fr.) “to assist, attend, be present at” - Tyrone Guthrie used it in the sense of assisting to describe the active role of the theatre audience.

Behaviourist: Behaviourists regard all behaviour as a response to a stimulus. They assume that what we do is determined by the environment we are in, which provides stimuli to which we respond, and the environments we have been in in the past, which caused us to learn to respond to stimuli in particular ways.

Brechtian: In the dramatic style of Bertolt Brecht, Dramatist dais: A raised platform, generally in an exalted position reserved for important individuals. ducal gallery: a raised tier bordering the parterre that was a feature of baroque auditoria foveal: part of the retina that permits 100% visual acuity in the human eye hippodrome: Ancient Greek stadium for horse and chariot racing loggia: An open balcony in a theater “Louis XIV Position”: Expression that describes the position in the auditorium with an ideal view of the stage. odeon: (gr.) Theatre of ancient semicircular typology Palladian: In the architectural style of Andrea Palladio parterre: (fr.) ground in front of stage partis pris: (fr) a preconceived opinion, architecturally: the driving concept periaktos: (gr.) a painted triangular prism device that can be rotated to change theatre scenes

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peripheral: vision outside foveal system porto regia: (lt.) “the royal door”, central entry way through the scenae frons in ancient Roman theatre proscenium: (lt.) “in front of the scenery”, the stage in ancient Roman theatre or the frame around a stage in post-Renaissance theatre raking: the setting of something, esp. a stage or the floor of an auditorium at a sloping angle scaena: (lt.) theatre stage or scene, in Roman theatre usually referring to the stage house or building behind the stage. scenae frons: (lt.) Front of the façade of the stage house or scenae; pierced by three to five doors; unadorned in earlier theatres, but became increasingly ornate by the 2nd century with the addition of columns, niches, and statues decorating up to three stories of architecture.

Serlian: In the architectural style of Sebastiano Serlio shaman: a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, and practices divination and healing Stanislavskian: in the dramatic style of Constantin Stanislavski, dramatist trompe l’oeil: (fr.) an art technique involving realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions vomitorium: (lt.) a passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre Vitruvian: In the architectural style of Vitruvius

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