Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1977 - 11

Key: Lyttelton Theatre Stalls Level. (Opposite page)
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l yttelton Theatre
Stage
Rear stage
Side stage
Scene dock
Stage offices
Property store
l yttelton stalls foyer
lyttelton cloakroom
Road level entrance foyer
Advance Box Office
Stage door
Goods reception

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Wardrobe store
Olivier understage (drum revolve)
Recording studio
Cottesloe Theatre
Cottesloe entrance foyer
Dressing rooms
Production rehearsal rooms
Property shop
Fibreglass workshop
Paint shop
Carpentry shop
loading bay
Metalwork shop

bars, buffets, books and buskers of the main complex.
We know the theory that studio audiences cannot be
enticed to enter grand doorways; but the architecture
of the building on that side is at its most monumentally
dramatic with a colossal concrete colonnade of angled
raking struts. Once inside, the studio theatre has always
held the promise inherent in a theatre of small capacity,
namely human scale. An overall area of 69 feet by 62
feet on plan suggested spatial discipline and lack of
money plus gadgetorial restraint. For a long time it
appeared that the monetary control was being imposed
to the extent, surely excessive, of not putting anything
into the space. It was to be bricked-up and one had visions
of posterity opening it up in deep time and learnedly
speculating on the place of the Vacuum theatre in our
National life!
About two years ago something began to happen and

the ambiguous black box studio idea was replaced by a
more disciplined plan owing something to the Georgian
theatre. Three galleries on each of the three sides of the
rectangle can either be left open to an end stage with or
without a proscenium, or closed by a fourth galleried wall
to form a complete courtyard. In this case the stage
moves to the centre perhaps but within the format flexibility reigns and the courtyard could be so arranged to
evoke an Elizabethan stage for example.
To keep down expenditure the 'fourth wall' has
been omitted for the present and, instead of a modular
elevator system to change the levels of the main floor,
rostrums are used. So there is little encouragement to
make big changes in the format at the moment but there
should be plenty of fun to be extracted from variations
on a 'Georgian' theme. If only the place wasn't blackedout with black paint everywhere. The metal framing
could be in a nice deep red and we could have enjoyed
the columns which optically join and enclose the space
while holding up the galleries. They are positioned immediately behind the single row of seats and should have
continued upwards on the top gallery to keep the sense
of enclosure. Above this level is an array of lighting
bridges. I am convinced that the best neutral background
for theatre is something with character. The mind cannot
relax in a black void. That is why I am so enthusiastic
over a school theatre in Horsham which is on the same
format but of wood full of character and colour. Black
is quite wrong in the Cottesloe.

Cottesloe Theatre: The Audience "Brown Bagging It" before the performance.

USITT

THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

Photo courtesy: The National Theatre
SUMMER,1977

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