Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1987 - 16

THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY'S SWAN THEATRE

In 1985, money was given anonymously, and in 1986,
The Swan Theatre opened. For its first season, productions of The Two Noble Kinsman by Shakespeare and
Fletcher, Every Man In His Humour by Ben Jonson, The
Rover by Aphra Behn, and The Fair Maid of the West by
Thomas Heywood were presented.
In addition to the Swan Theatre, the RSC operates the
main stage Royal Shakespeare Theatre and a studio theatre called The Other Place in Stratford and the Barbican
Theatre and the Pit Theatre in London.
On July 31, 1986, I had an opportunity to interview
Michael Dembowicz, the stage manager for the Royal
Shakespeare Company. I asked him about this new
facility:
James Schempp: How much did the Swan Theatre project cost?

Time will tell whether on any given night we can sell
over 2000 seats in Stratford. And not just on any given
night, any performance: we are geared to a turn-around
on one play in the afternoon, another in the evening.
Stratford is a place that is geared to about a two- or
three-day stay. It's not a place you can spend a long time
at unless you're studying or happen to be fanatical about
Shakespeare. So in two or three days we have to give as
much choice as possible. If we went to "lot shows" we
wouldn't sell half our seats for half of the week. We
couldn't play Romeo and Juliet for two or three weeks at
a time, or for a week, and then change throughout the
season like that. We don't have the population resident
here. In England about 2 % of the population is theatregoing.

J.S.: In the Swan Theatre, a great portion of your audience is above the stage level. Has the fact that most of
the audience is above their eye-level caused any probMichael Dembowicz: The exact figure we've always
lems for the actors?
been told is that it cost a million pounds, and as you
probably know, that money
M.D.: You're quite right, the
came from an anonymous
people in the top balconies
benefactor who had a lot of
are at a ridiculously high anOver the last fifteen years we have been
money through some foundagle, but again, that's one of
tion or other, which he had to
the joys of the Swan. Whether
trying to get nearer the public or the
spend by a certain date.
the actors have any difficulty,
public nearer to the stage, and in the
well, on the whole, it's like
Swan, I don't think you can
playing in the main house.
J.S.: Why was this particular
design chosen?
The bulk of the audience is
actually be closer.
above and we have to play to
M.D.: You could not fit a
the dress circle bar. In the
whole backstage area or a new
Swan we can play to the midproscenium stage in that space without dramatically
dle balconies, and that isn't a problem. We're used to it in
cutting down pan of the structure and building out into
the big house.
the gardens. And you would have to say then, why would
I think it is very difficult to include the third balcony.
we want it 1 We already have a proscenium theatre.
It's rather like some of these very old theatres, some
You'll notice all the spaces of the RSC serve different
people do miss out. Because it's at such an angle, it
needs. We have our vast proscenium main house stages
would look ridiculous to the people down below if you
stood on that stage and included them; you'd be acting
here and at the Barbican, and we have our small studios
at The Other Place and The Pit. Over the last fifteen
with your head at a fony-five degree angle! Still, it's
years we have been trying to get nearer the public or the
better than nothing. People would rather go up there
public nearer to the stage, and in the Swan, I don't think
than not see the show.
you can actually be closer. In most of those seats, you
Another interesting thing we've found in doing The
have real contact with the stage. The idea was to do
Rover-which is the first play we've done in the Swan
Shakespeare's contemporaries in a simple fashion, relywith lots of foils and swords - is that the audience's
ing totally on costume and text.
noses are only a few feet away. A sword fight could be
disastrous if we weren't careful.
J.S.: It's a much smaller house than the main stage Royal
J.S.: When a play is done on the main stage, it is comShakespeare Theatre. The Swan seats about 400 and the
pared to those productions of the same play which have
other seats about 1600. But would you really have the
audience for other Elizabethans that you have for
been done before. Now you're doing The Rover, and
Shakespeare?
many people have not even heard of the playwright, let
alone the play. Does that give the director new freedom,
M.D.: I think something we will have to learn ultimately
or are they less experimental and more traditional?
is, do we have the audience for even 400 1 On any given
M.D.: Well, I think it must give them new freedom,
night we have 1500 or so in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and a couple of hundred up the road at The Other
because Shakespeare is so restricting in that he has only
a very few plays. He's got a good-sized canon, but most of
Place. Last year I was involved in a mammoth pageant, a
those plays we can't do because they're not popular. We
local play we put on in a factory up the road. We did this
play with 150 local people and professional actors. We
do the popular A Midsummer Night's Dream more often
than we'd actually like to. We don't often do the Henry
had 400 seats up there and we couldn't sell them. Was
that because we were away from this theatre and at a
N plays, and I don't know when the last King John was
factory up the Birmingham road? I think that has to be
on the main stage.
asked.
It is difficult for a group of directors to be always
14

TD&T· SUMMER 1987

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