Theatre Design & Technology - Oct 1967 - 19

View and plan of Guggenheim
Auditorium
Photos: Progressive Architecture

The Panel. Photo: John Primm
within a sphere or a rectangle within a cube-a type of
architecture that's hardly architecture at all unless one thinks
of it in its most symbolic terms as an environment to house
and make possible certain events, in this case, theatre. To
me the ideal theatre would be a large rectangular, cubeshaped structure with possibilities for reduction in size, concentric cubes-within-cubes going below the ground and well
above ground. There should be the means to elevate and
lower the stage, the seating, and what have you. There ought
to be the possibility for the stage to be above seating, below seating, to the side of seating, to be surrounded by
seating, or for seating to be surrounded by stage. Such a
theatre would place the responsibil ity for the theatre's interior environment at each particular event on the designing
artists, that is, on the director and his staff of designers. It
seems to me that this could be done simply and without
great expense.
JONES: I would be very curious to know (Mr. Houghton and
Mr. Butler are much closer to this than I) whether or not
about ten or fifteen years ago a number of directors all over
America decided that since we lived in a different world
now, the actors should stand in the same room with the
audience. Was this an artistic decision or did a funny little,
low-rent building dictate it to them? If the latter is the case,
then very clearly some physical situation dictated something
to an artistic director; he kind of liked it, and so now he's
spending two million dollars building it.

OCTOBER. 1967

BUTLER: The first time I ever worked outside the conventional theatre form was because, for some reason, I got absolutely "turned on" by an Ibsen play. I had the feeling
that if I put it into a conventional theatre, the audience
would be too far away, and that they'd be able to stand up
and say, "Oh well, wasn't that interesting when it happened
to all those people way back in those days." I deliberately
went and found a space where they couldn't do that. I
ended up doing an arena production where I felt that somehow the people could not be hidden back in the 1 9th Century with dust sprinkled on them. To judge by the audience
reaction, they got so engrossed in the private agonies of the
people that the Ibsen themes, which might have seemed a
little outdated, preoccupied them less and the people preoccupied them more, and so they were captured by the characters. So, it was the suitable theatre for me for that particular idea. And that's why I went in, not because it was
there.
HOUGHTON: I suspect that the reason a good many people
moved into this kind of staging was because there weren't
very many procenia-because it was the only thing available.
I suspect that it began that way and then, it was liked, and
so that new relationship became a new form.
FRANZEN: Historically it may not be quite that way. I'm
working with Nina Vance, who incidentally is for the open
stage and the space stage. She is a woman who knows her

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Oct 1967