Chapter+1

Modern audiences who aren’t feeling particularly well-disposed towards a play or a player usually limit the signs of their disapprobation to fairly genteel booing. In days gone by audiences could be much more openly hostile. Early in the nineteenth century Edmund Kean caused what became known as the ‘Boston Riot’ when his loutish behaviour and reluctance to appear before them provoked the audience to tear out their seats and smash the theatre windows and lights. Quoted by Gayles Grandreth in //Great Theatrical Disasters//. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982, p. 131. __CHAPTER I__ __Theatre Architecture__ At its most basic, the theatre is collaboration between people -- an audience and a performer or performers. Theatre is a live event and as such performer and audience enjoy a unique set of experiences together at a particular time and in a particular context. That context is the performance space.

The performance space for all live events has a decided influence over the outcome of the relationship. The wrong event for the wrong space may spell disaster for both performers and audiences. Imagine a football game set in an ice hockey arena or a horse race set on a golf course. The venue for these sports is wrong. A football game and a horse race work best in a specific context, namely the space for which they were designed to be witnessed. So it is with theatre events.

Three groups of people are concerned with performance spaces -- the audience, the performers, and the managers. As an audience members, perhaps you may see your needs as paramount, simply because you pay for the privilege of attending a performance event. So we will consider issues related to your expectations first.

__Audience Expectations__

There are obvious questions of comfort connected with each space an audience inhabits. In most theatres today your seat is clearly marked by row and seat number and more than likely you have paid a price (sometimes a hefty price!) to sit there in that seat on such and such a day and at such and so a time when you are admitted into the space to occupy your temporary possession.

You may expect the seat to be clean and the surrounding floor to be free of litter. Your seat may seem to say, "Here, sit on me. Enjoy yourself for the time we are together." Your time together is short lived indeed, usually extending from the moment you are allowed into the space which is generally called a house or front of house to less than a few minutes after the end of the performance. But until the end, it is yours. Yes, do enjoy it!

You may reasonably expect the air in the house to be fresh, clean and comfortably -- cool on a hot day and warm on a cold one.

You ordinarily don’t have the luxury of choosing your neighbors, unless you are part of a group of friends or a theatre party which have booked tickets together in advance. Whether you are alone or part of a group you are now part of a larger community, the audience, and as such your individuality blends into that of the whole body, the group that has paid for the right to share an experience together. Perfect strangers most, who may never come together again. We’ll deal with you, the audience and what it means to be an audience member in greater detail in Chapter IV.

Audience members all see the stage from a different perspective simply because of the different possible locations of their seats in the house. Some may not expect to see all the scenery or to experience the production from an “ideal” perspective. Your seat may just happen to be too high up in the balcony to see the top of the scenery, or to far to the right or the left in the orchestra to see the whole acting area. Annoying but true. When you buy a seat you don’t always have access to a seating chart or have good choices of seats. Perhaps, like many, you bought your ticket at the last minute and were unable to get a better seat with a better view of the stage. Such is the luck of those who purchase their tickets at the last minute.

Some people like to sit close to the stage so they may see every expression on the performer’s faces, even if it means watching them sweat under the harsh stage lights. Others prefer to see the whole stage picture from a respectful distance, set and actors alike. If given a choice, consider the possibility of sitting in a seat in the middle of the house, half way back from the stage on the main floor, as close to the center as possible to watch performers, sets, lights, costumes as though they were all part of one stage picture. Directors often design their staging from this point and designers too, use this spot as a convenient point of reference for their renderings and models. Seasoned theatregoers often regard these seats as the best in the house and usually like to sit there when they can because they know that the director and the designers probably have planned for the production to be seen from this vantage point. Often these are the most expensive seats in the house and are prized possessions of season subscription holders.

In many older New York theatres there is a center aisle running down the middle of the house, which means that the best seats are on either side of the aisle, half way back. In theatres with continental seating there are seats exactly in the middle of the house, opposite the stage half way back. In this respect, continental theatre houses offer more people an opportunity to see the production from the best vantage point than do the older style houses.

When you attend a performance there are also questions of safety which you rarely think or talk about but which impact management practices in all modern theatres today. The threat of fire is an ever present danger. Many notable theatres of the past have been destroyed by fire. City fire codes in most public places, particularly in theatres, are very strict simply because there are so many possibilities for fires to break out either because of electrical defects or through the improper use of live flames. All sorts of precautions have been taken to protect the public. There is even a mandatory fire curtain separating the stage from the house which must be lowered in case of fire.

The modern fire codes are the product of centuries of efforts to save lives. Harsh restrictions regarding the use of live flames on stage are common throughout the world. New restrictions on smoking in theatres have helped prevent potential fires, as well. You may have notices that smoking on stage has all but disappeared in the last ten years although it was very common thirty years ago. Changes in public attitudes about smoking in the United States have been translated to the theatre with some benefit to your safety as an audience member.

__Performer Expectations__

The stage proper is of particular important for actors and actresses, as well as for scene, light, and costume designers. Out of sight of the audience are dressing rooms and makeup rooms, showers, toilets, green rooms, exits and entrances to these spaces from stage doors that are important to maintaining the separation between audiences and performers and technicians. Elaborate and expensive stage equipment including pipe grids, curtains of all kinds, electrical outlets, wiring, etc. -- all these must be provided to meet the needs of designers in aid of the performance. The upkeep and maintenance of the performing space is crucial for a performance to work smoothly and safely. In Part II we will spend a great deal more time considering the acting area, stage space, backstage spaces, and all the areas that make up the modern theatre.

Initially, you should be aware that the performance you see is influenced by the space occupied by the performers and its attendant facilities for presenting a work to the audience.

Some theatres like that at Lincoln Center organize tours backstage so visitors may better understand the elaborate workings that make up modern theatre spaces. Few people realize that the Metropolitan Opera theatre at Lincoln Center has five different levels of storage spaces below ground where opera sets are used to rotate the repertory of operas that is scheduled for performances throughout the season. Elaborate plans call for the exchange of sets on a daily (sometimes twice daily!) basis within the house and between the storage spaces in the house and warehouse facilities in New Jersey. It is fascinating for audience members to learn just how complicated the business of live performance really can be from the perspective of the performers, designers, and technicians.

__Manager Expectations__

To run and maintain a modern theatre structure is a complicated and expensive proposition. Perhaps the least understood aspect of most theatres is the space needed to manage the facilities. A secure space for selling tickets is absolutely necessary. Tickets are regarded the same as money and must be kept secure at all times to prevent financial loss to the theatre and the company. There are also concession stands that must be stocked and run, coat check facilities, and public toilets. Management must provide adequate conference space for personnel to meet away from the public and the performers in order to plan and conduct their business. Provisions must be made for janitorial staff, for ushers, for storage. These are but some of the more important needs of most modern theatres.

__Origins of Performance Space__

Religious/Ritualistic Origins:

Among the earliest reason for theatre performance was to serve ritual and religious needs of society. It is thought that the first actors may have been priests who danced stories enacting successful hunts for animals and enemies to encourage and focus the members of the tribe. Space for these early story-dances were probably simple, perhaps a common ground where such events always took place served the basic needs of the priests and their fellow dancers.

Sophisticated examples of these early needs are found among the Greek city-states of the sixth and fifty centuries B.C.E. Performance of plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were given in spaces where effigies of the gods were brought from nearby temples and paraded before the audience in a space known as the orchestra just before the performance began. It is thought that the deities were placed directly opposite the acting area so they could “watch” the events unfolding in their presence.

In India, where the earliest examples of theatre performance took place in Asia, theatre was considered a sacrifice to the gods and a close association existed between Hindu temples and performers, many of the performers became and still are temple servants dedicated to the worship of God. The Japanese Noh theatre grew out of performances in Zen temples and owes its origin to ritual occasions connected with the celebration of harvests.

Closer to home, after the Dark Ages in Europe, theatre probably reemerged in churches as part of Easter Celebrations. The Quem Quaertis trope celebrating the resurrection of Christ dates from about 925 C.E. It is an elementary drama of the simplest kind. It suggests that the environment of the church sanctuary was the spot for the performances.

Social/Cultural Expression:

During the European Renaissance, kings and princes ordered the construction of special theatre spaces, adapted from their understanding of Greek and Roman theatre structures, which not only allowed entertainment to occur on a grand scale but provided the rulers a chance to be seen in lavish settings. Attending a performance with the ruler was considered an auspicious occasion for the courtiers. For rulers to be seen by their subjects and for subjects to be seen with their king in such a setting was a status symbol. France’s Louis XIV, the Sun King, was particularly fond of grand entertainments of all kinds and patronized the plays of Moliere who was honored to perform before the king. Moliere even wrote endings to some of his plays in praise of the monarch. Shakespeare’s company was patronized by the Lord Chamberlain as were many other companies of the day and during the English Restoration in the late seventeenth century, the companies of players that were officially licensed to perform were patronized by various noblemen, thus extending official sanction of the aristocracy to the players and performance event.

Commercial Objectives:

Perhaps commercial considerations have always played some part in theatre events and performance spaces. Greek city-states constructed performance spaces to be used for special public occasions and performances were evaluated and awarded prizes by committees of citizens. The public theatre structures in Shakespeare’s day were designed to earn money for the theatre owner. And the Chinese teahouses which patronized performances of Chinese Opera did so in order to bring business into the tea house. There were no tickets but tea and refreshments were sold to spectators who sat at small tables surrounding the performance area. The Kabuki theatres of seventeenth century Japan even permitted cooking in the house which undoubtedly attracted spectators to spend the whole day at the theatre.

Today, performance spaces must sustain themselves through ticket sales and rentals. Nothing is worse than a dark theatre house. It is idle property often located on expensive real estate. Commercial interests in theatre began to dominate the theatre in Europe with the construction of public playhouses in England in the late sixteenth century. In Japan the Kabuki theatre was a product of the seventeenth century and was popular with the newly emerging merchant class. Going to a kabuki performance was a thrill for many and theatre owners began their shows early in the morning often before sunrise and they continued to attract patrons throughout the day with various fare and star attractions until dusk, when much of the pleasure quarter where the theatres were located, was closed to conform to government regulations banning performances after dark.

These are but a few examples of the commercial role of the theatre. Suffice it to say the city of New York relies heavily on revenue from tourists who come to the city to attend theatre performances on Broadway and at Lincoln Center. And to keep that business flowing special tax concessions have been provided to encourage theatre owners to keep ticket prices low enough and competitive enough so that audiences can afford a holiday in Manhattan.

__Characteristics of Theatre Structures__

Today’s theatre structures are very much a produce of past precedents. They represent the efforts of societies and cultures to provide a context in which performers and audiences may meet.

There are three basic types of configurations that have emerged over the centuries. They are the frontal or proscenium arrangement, the round or arena arrangement, and a compromise between these two configurations known as the thrust or 3/4 round. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Flexible spaces or found spaces, as well as some unusual theatre configurations, also have their place in the catalogue of modern theatre architecture.

Arena or Theatre-in-the-Round:

Perhaps the first performing spaces in the world where those which were out of doors and which were round. They were probably located in open fields near villages of tribals who danced stories about the hunt. Audiences may have simply gathered around the players and watched while standing or sitting. Spaces such as these may have had ritual significance and may even have been considered sacred. It is from just such simple beginnings that the basic relationship between audience and performers may have first began. Examples of there simple configurations of audiences and performers are still to be found in rural areas of Asian and Africa. It was not until the twentieth century that theatre in the round reappear again in indoor Arena theatres that were constructed in large urban areas of the United States. Among the earliest built was the Penthouse Theatre at the University of Washington in Seattle. Many arena theatres were constructed thereafter. Among the best known today is the Arena Stage of Washington, D.C. The first permanent theatre in the round in India, aside from those commonly found in rural areas is the Circarena Theatre of Calcutta, built in the early 1960s. It is modeled after the Arena Stage.

Proscenium or Frontal:

Perhaps the most popular theatre structures are those which have a frontal or proscenium arrangement. It is debatable whether these theatres were inspired by precedents in the European Renaissance or whether they came from an earlier period. A proscenium arch theatre is one in which an opening (the proscenium arch) separates the spectators from the stage. The arch itself was architecturally rich and highly decorated at some periods in history. In the nineteenth century special box seats were part of the proscenium arch permitting patrons to sit close to the players. Steinberg’s cartoon at the head of this chapter depicts people sitting in boxes near the proscenium arch. It was in such a box as this that President Lincoln was sitting at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865 when he was shot from behind by John Wilkes Booth who leaped to the stage injuring himself in the process before he made a hasty escape from the theatre. Today, the proscenium arch theatres ordinarily have a simple architectural frame. These theatres are also known as “picture frame” stages because they are similar to picture frames behind which the scenes are presented almost like paintings. Proscenium arch theatres maximize the possibility for scenic display, which they were originally intended to do. They have the added advantage of allowing a large number of people to see performances at one time.

Thrust or 3/4 Round:

The thrust or three quarters round performance space has enjoyed a long history, as well. It is unclear when it first came into being. When you look at plans from the Greek theatres of sixth and fifth centuries Athens the orchestra area was surrounded on three sides by seating suggesting that these early performance spaces were actually the first thrust theatres.

In fourteenth and fifteenth century China there were similar outdoor spaces. They were popular in rural areas. They were raised high off the ground above the heads of the spectators who stood around all three sides. A roof covered the stage itself supported by two pillars. A curtain hung at the back with a place for actors to enter up right and exit up left. This basic plan was later duplicated in teahouses throughout China where Chinese Opera performers held the stage.

For most of us in the United States and in England, the Elizabethan stages of London represent the type of thrust theatre with which we are more familiar. Although we do not actually have a surviving example of late sixteenth and early seventeenth century stages in London, scholars believe that the stage on which Shakespeare's plays were performed at the Globe Theatre thrust out into an open space around which audiences could stand. Three sets of galleries surrounded the stage on three sides. Like the early Chinese theatres the stage was relatively high so everyone could see. Two pillars held up a permanent roof as well.

The corrales theatres of Spain constructed about the same time were similar in conception and may have even inspired the English models.

Owing to fires in London, the plague, political pressures, and changing tastes the Elizabethan playhouses disappeared by the latter half of the seventeenth century.

Alternative Performance Spaces:

The movement away from the proscenium arch theatre with its fixed seating and bi-directional orientation began in the experimental theatre movement in Europe and America in the early twentieth century. It gradually grew in importance during the 1950s and 1960s and continues to thrive today. It led some theatre practitioners to seek two kind of performance venues–1. a permanent but flexible performance space, and 2. “found” spaces.

The permanent but flexible performance spaces are usually located inside large buildings. They are often known as black box theatres. Simply put the black box is a room painted black, often large enough to hold several hundred patrons and with ceilings high enough to place lighting instruments on an overhead grid often covering the entire ceiling. The location of the stage in a black box theatre is generally never fixed so that the orientation of performers and audience may be easily altered to suit the particular need of the performance. The black box theatre has several advantages. Because it is located in a permanent building audiences may easily come to know of its existence and grow accustomed to expect certain kinds of productions in the performance venue. It also allows crowd control so that tickets may be bought and sold. And it permits fully flexible lighting potentials similar to the proscenium, thrust, and arena theatre arrangements. Finally, owing to its flexibility it puts less attention on scenic potentials and more focus on the actors. It is no wonder then that black box theatres have become popular on college campuses in the last twenty years.

Other experimental theatre artists have gravitated to a variety of temporary performance sites or places where audiences and performers may gather to interact. Rather than depending on a fixed space in which to experiment, they choose to carry their work to venues where people gathered, such as tents, workers’ clubs, occupied factories, festivals, and so forth. For example, groups like Tube Theatre took London’s busy Underground tube stations as their performance home. Squat Theatre chose a convert a store front on 23rd street in Manhattan as a performance space for it’s 1982 production of //Pig//. Squat Theatre artists incorporated the sidewalk and street life outside to enhance the artificiality of the dramatic on stage. Many artists throughout Latin and South American, Africa, and Asia have chosen to work on street corners or in public parks. Badal Sircar, a Calcutta based playwright and director, routinely shifts performance venues for his plays from parks to street corners to empty rooms claiming that there is a tyranny of familiar performance spaces which theatre artists find difficult to resist simply because they become convenient for them.

__Example of a Performance in Context__

It is useful to imagine an actual performance in a particular context. In doing so we are going to turn to a newspaper review as our primary source. So often published reviews by theatre critics serve as the eyes of the audience. In the following example, it is necessary to use your imagination and to view the production through the eyes of the person who saw the production, in this particular case through the eyes of Howard Taubman who reviewed Edward Albee’s //The American Dream// just after it first opened in New York City on January 24, 1961. Taubman wrote his review for //The New York Times//.

It is useful to note some of the historical and cultural events that were happening in 1961 as a means of understanding another kind of contextual relationship. On the international scene 1961 saw the construction of the Berlin Wall and Major Yuri Gagarin of the U.S.S.R. became the first man in space. It was also the year of the foundation of the Union of South Africa. On the theatre scene, Cafe La Mama was founded by Ellen Stewart in New York’s East Village and was to become a major home for experimental theatre events of all kinds which could not find expression in the professional commercial theatre that dominated New York theatre. Cafe La Mama is still active off-off Broadway. Films that were released in 1961 were //Breakfast at Tiffany’s//, //West Side Story// , //The Guns of Navarone// , and //Judgment at Nurunborg// , as well as //Jules and Jim// and //Last Year at Marienbad//. The novel //The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie// was published, as well as //Herzog//. The highest rated television show of the ‘61 season was “Wagon Train,” followed by “Bonanza” and “Hazel.” Bob Dylan made his debut as a singer in Greenwich Village.

//The American Dream// is a long one act play. It was first performed at the York Playhouse in New York City as part of a double bill along with //Bartley//, a musical setting for Herman Melville’s story of the same name, with score by William Flanagan and libretto by James Hinton Jr. and Mr. Albee.

The York Playhouse was a small proscenium arch theatre which was part of the off-Broadway theatre scene in the 1950s and early 1960s. Tennessee Williams’ //Garden District// played there in 1958. In 1964 the York was converted into a movie house only to be converted in the late sixties to a popular ‘singles’ bar and restaurant, Maxwell’s Plum.

Albee, recognized today as a major American playwright, was then only known for a few short plays -- “The Death of Bessie Smith,” “The Sandbox” (which has some of the same characters as those found in //The American Dream// ), and “The Zoo Story,” arguably his best one-act play up to that time.

As do most professional critics, Mr. Taubman focuses his comments on the play in order to inform his readers of its content and characters. His summary helps us to understand the context that was considered appropriate for the work by the Director Alan Schneider and Mr. Albee. Most of the review is reproduced as follows:

Mr. Albee begins brilliantly. Mommy and Daddy, seated on identical armchairs in a symmetrical barren living room are making small talk. He is grumbling about the indifference of people who won’t fix things in the house. She takes over and, with tyrannical demand for his attention, tells about an adventure in shopping for a hat. The conventional dialogue is as pared as if by a surgeon’s knife, and it is caustic and hilarious.

Mommy and Daddy are types, all right. She is the domineering upper-class wife, he the long suffering, acquiescent husband. Mr. Albee has no intention of using them as anything but stereotypes, except that they blurt out the disagreeable thoughts often concealed behind ordinary chatter. Mr. Albee handles his chosen technique with a disarmingly childlike and sardonic freshness.

Then Grandma, who is supposed to be a superannuated nuisance, appears. She is well aware that her daughter, Mommy wishes to get rid of her. She is full of an old woman’s complaints. But in another of his lively switches, Mr. Albee turns her into a sassy old party.

We are next introduced to Mrs. Barker, a club lady, whose part in the charade remains enigmatic until almost the end. When she arrives, Mommy invites her to sit down. “Are you comfortable?” she asks, like a thoughtful hostess. “Won’t you take off your dress?” And Mrs. Barker does. Are you beginning to get the notion of Mr. Albee’s approach?

At last the Young Man comes on. Evidently this figure is full of private meaning for Mr. Albee. Like the strange young man in “The Zoo Story,” this one is curiously detached from life and eager to have other minds and bodies act on his. The difference is that in “The Zoo Story” the outcome is tragic and here the end is not death, though it surely is not happy.

Mr. Albee’s play comments satirically on marriage, the problem of old age and a diversity of other matters. It has its share of amusing and penetrating surprises. But is also is disaffectingly brittle. The nonsense at times comes perilously close to being the giggerish it is mocking.

Mr. Taubman’s observations provide a good idea about the characters and their relationships. At the end he begins to express his opinions about the work giving his reader some idea about whether to see it or not.

However, if we were going to produce this play in a particular performance venue we need additional information that may only be gathered from the script and the stage directions.

On examination of the published version of the play (New York: Coward–McCann, 1960 and 1961), Albee sets the scene as follows: “A living room. Two armchairs, one toward either side of the stage, facing each other diagonally out toward the audience. Against the rear wall, a sofa. A door, leading out from the apartment, in the rear wall, far stage-right. An archway, leading to other rooms, in the side wall, stage-left.”

Albee goes on to say, “At the beginning, Mommy and Daddy are seated in the armchairs, Daddy in the armchair stage-right, Mommy in the other. Curtain up. A silence.”

These are the only details that he provides up to this point in the play about the set and the configuration of it in relationship to the audience. It should be plainly evident from what has been said thus far that the playwright thinks of the play as being performed on a proscenium arch stage.