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Design Review: Volume 1, Issue 4 (December 1948)

A Theatre To Seat 800

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A Theatre To Seat 800

The theatre is a workshop. Cheap grandeur for the audience and cramped inconvenience for everybody else—that is the old standard. The new must provide adequate space and equipment for all the artists and technicians who contribute to the soul-shaking illusion of the stage.

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Gilded halls, with their cramped seats, sight-screening posts, banging lobby doors, heaven-soaring “gods,” and protruding ornamental papier mâché and plaster fripperies—these are the playhouses of New Zealand. Although new enthusiasm has been given to New Zealand dramatic art by the visit of the Old Vic, what a sorry picture New-Zealand theatres presented to the members of this company whose leader was prompted to say: “… the building of theatres seems to be an art we have lost …”

It has been suggested that a dramatic centre be built as a war memorial, but whether this be so or whether it be part of a community, institution—a school of drama or whether it is just to serve the people of a big city—let us have no more of these gilded halls. Instead we need well-designed and equipped theatres which should provide for contact between performers and amongst the audience itself.

To-day the theatre must cater for varying types of stage presentations from “straight” drama to musical comedies. Musical performances require accommodation for a full orchestra or a soloist. Ballets may range from Greek to the moderns. With the public becoming more and more accustomed to the elaborate psychological and scenic effects of the film, it is essential to provide theatres adaptable to the rapidly expanding vocabulary of modern staging and production so that they can compete with those very real attractions of the film.

To provide for all types production requires a theatre plan as flexible as possible. Rather than discuss the merits and demerits of theatre design in general. Design Review presents a project which would meet most requirements and which should easily be adapted for different sites and local conditions. The project is based on recent overseas examples and is to seat 800. Most authorities agree that a theatre seating a larger number of people on the main floor loses the desirable intimacy, and good vision and acoustics are detrimentally affected.

The vestibule is spacious and provides for easy movement of crowds. It contains ticket boxes, cloaks, lavatories, manager's room, administration, and refreshment bar. Access to the foyer on the first floor is over easy stairs or ramps. The ramps are a means of quick exit for the crowd in emergency. The foyer, apart from its uses during a show. may be used for exhibitions, receptions and rehearsals. Access to the auditorium is provided at many points from the rear with aisles ensuring that people find their seats quickly and easily. There are no doors between auditorium and foyer. This is a novel feature, but acoustical analysis can achieve this. The use of seating in which each row becomes an aisle is accepted as a better arrangement than the cramped seats of the orthodox method. Every member of the audience has a full view of the stage. The floor slopes and the heads of spectators are always below the line of vision of those seated behind. Empty seats in the house may spoil the spirit of actors and audience alike. To avoid this the capacity may be reduced by movable lightweight partitions suspended on ceiling tracks and rollers. However, they are designed so that good proportions of the auditorium are retained at any time. After good vision has been ensured the interior form of the theatre should be largely determined by acoustical research. Experts should be consulted and models tested before fixing on a design.

Sometimes in a modern theatre the audience ought to take an active part in what is happening on the stage. The forestage projecting into the auditorium gives greater opportunities for performances to be seen in the “round” rather than through a picture frame. This forestage, large enough for an entire play to be given on it, can be furnished from either of the wings or a storeroom in the basement, page 4 as it may be raised or lowered. Fully raised, it constitutes a direct extension of the main stage. Lowered to the auditorium level, it adds to the seating accommodation. When lowered further, it forms an orchestra pit. The entire floor of the main stage, including the revolving stage and wings. will be covered with rails for shifting scenery. This will be done with stage trolleys. Provision is made for the use of the conventional back drops. etc., and the cyclorama. The use of the cine-projector for the production of back-drops provides a wider range of convincing effects than the familiar atmosphere of painted canvas. But to take full advantage of the many gradations and subtleties, relatively elaborate projecting and illuminating equipment is necessary. For this a projection and lighting box is envisaged, capable of moving longitudinally in the ceiling of the auditorium.

Dressing-rooms, green room, workshops, paintshops, rehearsal space, ample storage space, etc., are provided to the rear and basement of the stage.

The commercial theatre offers merely two and a half hours' escape at so much a head. It cannot become a social centre, and has no wish to be. Among its pretentious foyers it therefore provides no space in which anyone would wish to linger for more than the ‘interval’—

The commercial theatre offers merely two and a half hours' escape at so much a head. It cannot become a social centre, and has no wish to be. Among its pretentious foyers it therefore provides no space in which anyone would wish to linger for more than the ‘interval’—

whereas the theatre of to-morrow will be a true expression of community life. With a buffet open every evening and wall space for art exhibitions, its foyer becomes, as in the great theatres of Scandinavia, a social centre, a place for the intelligent use of leisure. Its profits will be small; its value to the cultural life of this country immense.

whereas the theatre of to-morrow will be a true expression of community life. With a buffet open every evening and wall space for art exhibitions, its foyer becomes, as in the great theatres of Scandinavia, a social centre, a place for the intelligent use of leisure. Its profits will be small; its value to the cultural life of this country immense.