THE 101 Lecture 25 1 Hello. I’m Bob Bradley. This is THE 101, Introduction to Theater and Drama Arts. Today’s subject is theater architecture and performance spaces. Now, most of us probably — and certainly many of you — don’t often think about what does theater look like. Well, of course you know what a theater looks like. The theater building to most of us means what we usually call a proscenium theater. And it is so called because the proscenium arch or the opening of the frame or the opening which frames the performance space is what we call a proscenium. So therefore when you think of a theater, you walk in and you see an auditorium with seats all arranged in rows facing a performance space and that performance space has a frame around it. In fact, probably 90% of the theater buildings in this country are what we call proscenium theater. Actually, this particular form of theater architecture was developed in Italy in the early 17th century. And very quickly it swept across Europe and by the end of the century into England, and became the dominant form of theater architecture, the one that we still use 300 or more, 400 years later. It is sometimes called a four-wall theater. If you think of this in terms of that you’re looking at an interior and what you see on stage is an interior set, and there are three walls. And then what happens is that fourth wall has been removed or you might think of it as being a piece of glass. And through that invisible fourth wall, the audience looks and watches and observes what goes on on stage. So let’s look then first at this proscenium theater. If you look at the diagram that you have that’s in front of you, then I think you can begin to understand this a little better. So let’s look at and talk about first what are the advantages of a proscenium theater. What are the advantages of this theater that are usually — that you are used to when you come to see a THE 101 Lecture 25 2 performance. First, all audience members are facing the same way. They’re sitting in rows, one next to the other, and all audience members are looking at the same thing at the same way, toward the stage. Therefore, within the stage picture itself specific focus is easy to achieve. It is easy for the director to arrange in some way — to set up a picture in such a way that the audience knows where to look, the audience knows what to see, what to listen to and hear. Most of the stage workings — that is, all of backstage — is fairly easily masked. In fact, probably most of you don’t even think much about what goes on backstage or what happens. All of this — all of these workings are in some way or the other, with the use of curtains and draperies and the proscenium arch itself and the wall, then, that is beside the proscenium arch, all of this is masking for that backstage area and so therefore you don’t see anything and magically things happen on stage. Four. Realistic interior settings look especially good behind a fourth wall, and so therefore they are always quite pleasing. And, five, a detached attitude or an aesthetic distance is easy to achieve in that the audience knows where it sits. And that is you come into the proscenium theater, you know this is where I’m sitting, and you look and you know that’s where the performers are. And so therefore there’s a little sort of — almost immediately a detachment that begins to take place here. The disadvantages. In many cases, a proscenium arch theater can be quite large. Sometimes theaters can seat as many as 4,000 people. Now, if you’re sitting in a proscenium theater, in a 4,000-seat house, I can assure you if you are on the back row or anywhere near the back row you are at this point a very long way from the performance space. THE 101 Lecture 25 3 It’s an awful long way down there and you have to peer mightily in order to see what is going on. So therefore, proscenium theaters can be large, they can be difficult to see in. If you’re nearer the front, then obviously this particular thing is not bothersome. But it certainly can be. Good examples of this would be if you know the Fox theater in St. Louis which indeed does have 4,000 or more seats in it, or the Midland theater in Kansas City which has about 3,000 seats or so in it, or even in Springfield the Juanita K. Hammons Hall for Performing Arts which has 2,200 seats in it. So if you have experienced any of those, then you have some idea of the disadvantages if you’re nearer the back of the auditorium. The other disadvantage is that in some ways this detachment which may indeed be an aesthetic one but can in some cases become more than that and can in some cases the audience can find itself sort of being non-involved in the performance itself. The second form of theater that I’m going to talk about is called the arena stage. It is a circle. In fact, this is probably the original performance arrangement. That is, at whatever point in some dim brain, at some point somebody said, “Let me show you this.” Then in that particular case what happened is the audience probably sat in a circle around the individual. In that case, then, we have this original performance space, the circle, the arena theater. If you look at the diagram you can begin to see here what we’re talking about. And, of course, it’s something you’re fairly used to because in a much larger case basketball arenas are usually this way. You sit on all four sides frequently in watching basketball games or watching in some cases football games, or whatever. So this idea of being a member of an audience and sitting in the round is not an unusual one. The advantages for theater, however, it does mean that in most cases the audience THE 101 Lecture 25 4 can be closer to the performance area and more intimacy can be achieved. One can have — if one is using all four sides and the audience is sitting all the way around, then if you have 400 people each to a side, then that last row on any one side is still going to be a lot closer than it would be if you were in a proscenium house and you’re seating 1600 people. Then that back row is still going to be pretty far back. So there is an advantage there. More intimacy can be achieved. Two. More audiences can be seated in closer proximity to the performance area. Three. The productions are usually less costly since the settings are limited in what can be put within the performance space, and that is one cannot put huge, extravagant sets into an arena stage. Because the audience has always got to be able to see all of the performance area all the time. So therefore, it just means that from a production standpoint it doesn’t cost as much. What are the disadvantages? The disadvantages are, one, that at some point or the other the actors will have their back turned to you for some part of the time. There’s just no way an actor standing in a circle is not in some ways going to be facing in one direction -- in whatever direction that actor is going to be facing, then obviously the back is going to be to the other. One of the things in directing in an arena that both actors and director have to be very aware of, and they have to be sure they keep making adjustments so as to keep the — finding reasons why the characters can move in such a way that the back of the same actor is not always to the audience. Audience members — some audience members frequently, however, find that a THE 101 Lecture 25 5 disadvantage for them is that they, in looking through the performance space, can see on the other side other audience members. Now, yes, you have in a proscenium theater the audience sitting beside you and you may have people sitting in front of you, but it’s different when you are looking through that performance and you can see on the other side the faces of the other audience members. You can see their reactions. Some people find this quite distracting. Three. Production details are limited, as I’ve already said. You cannot have extravagant sets. And so therefore some audience people find this to be a disadvantage. They prefer to have more spectral -- they prefer having more visible evidence of a set on stage than one can have in an arena. This particular form has lost popularity today. It was a form that was greatly touted in the mid-20th century and for a period in there there were a number of theaters that were built, that are in the round, but at the present time seldom is an arena theater built and there are only a few that are still being used today, perhaps the most famous of which is the Arena theater in Washington, D.C.