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Old and New: The Rejection of the Fan-Shaped Auditorium and the Reinstatement of the Courtyard Form

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Iain Mackintosh
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Extract

In the programme I am described as a theatre architect. I am not an architect but a theatre design consultant – one of a small team in London which assist architects in Britain and in many other countries – for the design and equipping of theatres. All of our group are practical men of the theatre. I mention this because my training is not architectural but theatrical experience – for twelve years a director of a touring drama company with no theatres of its own but which visited over a hundred theatres in twenty countries. As a result my approach to the design of old and new theatres is empirical. I have also changed my title. It is now: Old and New: the rejection of the fan-shaped auditorium and the reinstatement of the courtyard form’.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , October 1978 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1978

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References

Notes

1. The theme of the 8th World Congress was ‘Theatre Space, An Examination of the interaction between space, technology performance and society’. The Congress met every morning for a week and there was a different subject or ‘Symposium Basket’ each day. The first day ended with a paper delivered by George Izenour, whose monumental book Theater Design had been recently published. In this contribution at the Congress he took further the themes of his published paper: ‘The Origins, Evolution and Development of Theater Design since World War II in the United States of America’. George Izenour spoke of ‘the nuts and bolts of seeing and hearing’. He produced his seating geometry analysis criteria: the only satisfactory seats in a theatre being those within a wedge shaped ‘box’ which includes in the transverse plane only those seats within a 30° splay from the proscenium opening and in the vertical plane only those seats within 30° of the front edge of the stage measured on the centre line which are within 80 ft for drama and 120 ft for lyric theatre. By using three projectors he showed simultaneously the plan, longitudinal perspective section and the ‘seating geometry analysis’ isometric for 13 theatres. La Scala, Beazley's Drury Lane and the Dresden Opera House scored badly. Bayreuth, the Deutches Oper Berlin and all of George Izenour's multiple-use fan-shaped theatres scored very well indeed. It was this presentation in particular, which was delivered on the first day, that led to this paper being rewritten so as to provide an alternative presentation on the fourth day. My paper was printed alongside Izenour's in Theater Design and Technology, Summer 1978, under the headline, ‘Opposing Views—Izenour and Mackintosh: Fan-shaped Auditorium vs. Courtyard Form’.

2. Administrative Director of the Prospect Theatre Company from 1961–73. The Prospect Theatre Company became the principal tenant of the Old Vic Theatre in the summer of 1977.

3. In the conference programme the title was ‘The Restoration of the Old Vic Theatre’.

4. This refers to his paper published in the pre-Congress book Theatre Space, p. 218.

5. This research on the Old Vic was first presented by the author in an article ‘Scene Individable or Poem Unlimited’ in The Architectural Review, 01 1977 (Volume CLXI Number 959) which was a special issue devoted to the National Theatre. This was reprinted as a book entitled The National Theatre, The Architectural Review Guide edited by Amery, Colin. Architectural Press, 1977.Google Scholar

6. This theatre, opened in 1932, was originally called the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. The company which presented the annual festival at Stratford-on-Avon was not called the Royal Shakespeare Company until 1961, the year after it had opened its London base at the Aldwych Theatre. The Royal Shakespeare did not receive its first annual subsidy from public funds until 1962–3.

7. The best account of the theatre profession's reaction to the Stratford Memorial Theatre prior to 1951 is to be found in ‘The Other Theatre’ by Norman Marshall, John Lehmann London 1947.

8. Eden Court Theatre, Inverness: Architect Law & Dunbar-Nasmith; Theatre Consultant, John Wyckham; Stage and Auditorium Design Consultant, Iain Mackintosh.

9. Design Study for the Cottesloe Theatre, 1973 by Iain Mackintosh of Theatre Projects Consultants. Design Study developed by the Architects, Denys Lasdun & Partners, in association with the National Theatre Company.

10. See pp. 74–5 of Theatre Space: ‘France and its Theatre Locations in 1977’ by Christian Dupavillon.

11. The Tate Gallery version, slide 25 (Plate XVIII), commissioned by Sir Archibald Grant, is a replica of a near identical version commissioned by John Rich and now at the Yale Centre for British Art. Lawrence Gowing in the catalogue for the Hogarth exhibition held at the Tate in 1972 pointed out the difference between this and earlier versions in oil. Slides 26 and 27 were exhibited as items 1 and 2 in ‘The Georgian Playhouse’, Hayward Gallery, London, 1975. The Catalogue for this exhibition, by Iain Mackintosh and Geoffrey Ashton, is available from the Arts Council of Great Britain, 105 Piccadilly, London W1. It was after the catalogue was printed and when the exhibition was running that the author noticed the progressive development of the picture and in particular the treatment of the orchestra and of the stage audience.

12. By ‘poet’ is meant any dramatist, ancient or modern, prose or verse.

13. Cumberland ‘Memoirs’ quoted by Nagler, in Sources of Theatrical History, p. 408.Google Scholar

14. That Bayreuth marks the beginning of the best of contemporary theatre design is the contention of George Izenour and was so presented in his book Theater Design, in his published paper and in his contribution to the opening day of the conference.

15. ‘Box House and Illusion Stage – Problem Topic in Modern Theatre Construction. Observations and Contemplations concerning its Genesis' by Harold Zielske in the pre-conference published papers. Zielske illustrated his conference contribution with engravings of the courtyards of Italian Palaces laid out for ‘tournaments’ and other spectacles of the seventeenth century. Thereby he contended that the genesis of the box theatre was the roofing over of courtyards where the action was at first more central rather than confined to the scenic stage at the end of the courtyard.

16. That this practice was not confined to either Ireland or the 18th Century is suggested by an 1804 playbill for the Theatre Royal, Nottingham. This announced the ‘MUCH ADMIRED PONEY RACES, AS EXHIBITED BEFORE their Majesties the Prince and Princess of Wales, and ALL THE ROYAL FAMILY at the Frogmore Fete, near Windsor and afterward performed at Mr HANDY's and all the theatres in London’. These races were ‘the best of four heats, five times round to a heat’ and at the foot of the bill it was announced that ‘the whole of the Stage and Part of the PIT will be laid into a Race Ground, forming a space the most commodious ever seen, both for the Accommodation of the spectators, horses, riders and co. as well as the due Observance of the Rules of Racing, conforming to the Regulations of the Jockey Club’.

17. The Empty Space by Brook, Peter, McGibbon, & Kee, , London 1968.Google Scholar