Theatre Design & Technology - Oct 1967 - 20

business and her history; I have come to learn that the open
stage really is the ancient stage.
MIELZINER: The history of American theatre architecture at
the beginning of the 20th Century unfortunately provides us
with an inheritance of few good theatres. However, generally
speaking, in Europe they still have, in spite of the bombings
of both world wars, many wonderful theatres. Some are
very old, going back two and three hundred years. At a conference in London last week, this whole subject came up;
I found that the English were one hundred percent against
anything except traditional theatre because they had such
beautiful ones. And their point is, as Laurence Olivier said,
"If I have a choice, I want a proscenium stage, that is what
we call an Italian theatre, with every possible advantage including the only thing that's really new in the last 400
years of theatre, modern Iighting. It's the only new refinement, and it gives me enormous flexibility. So I want a
theatre that has every kind of light location that I can use,
and I want a very large stage so that I can have every shape
and every form and can build up what I want." But he suggests this within the framework of conventional, traditional,
good theatres, the kind of theatres you don't find in this
country very often.
HARDY: Does this have a conventional audience-actor relationship?
MIELZINER: No, not conventional. He runs a forestage out if
he wants to. But he doesn't particularly want a thrust-stage.
He likes an apron.
CRAMER: On the matter of total flexibility: there is a difference, gentlemen, between flexibility and sheer complexity.
Perhaps it would be better to take a more restricted structure and live with it instead of spending your life juggling
the junk around. Get on with what theatre's really all about,
and that's producing plays. I personally do not like arena
staging. I'm not very fond of the backside of most actresses
or of any actors. I would just as soon see their frontsides,
thank you very much. I think we have to be very, very careful that we don't fall in love with the idea, "Oh gosh, today we'll try something new and haul it around again."
This applies to a complex sound system as well as to the
f1exibil ity in audience-stage relationships. Also, it frequently
leads to similar elimination of other facilities for the audience: telephones, rest rooms, cloak rooms, lobbies. You're
in trouble and your client is in trouble because eventually
he is going to say, unless it's an extremely interesting performance, ''I'm going to stay home, because I'm not going
to hack all that nonsense any more." I think, particularly in
college theatre situations, this is very, very important and is
often neglected. The lobbies are too small; they are uncomfortable; you cannot meet your friends there easily. And after
all, that is also a part of the theatre experience. You've got
to pay attention to that; otherwise, all you're talking about
is the "fun and games" for the troupe. But the troupes
aren't going to have anybody to talk to unless people come
through that other set of doors. Those people have got to
be made comfortable.
HARDY: I'm not sure one can say that the architect determines the size of the lobby.
JOHNSON: Maybe more so than you think. You don't get
lobbies by accident do you?
HARDY: Would you make a few comments on what determined the lobbies, say, in the New York State Theatre?
JOHNSON: Well, I took all the room I could get and made
it a lobby.
HARDY: What about the rigidity of the theatre itself?

JOHNSON: Well, I'm on Mr. Cramer's side. Flexibility has
been one of those bugbears now for fifty years, at least
since the Bauhaus. Now, I'm more familiar with museums
than I am theatres, and it just doesn't work. Whatever the
museum director may be, he's no architect. I admit, he always wants to be one. He makes the darnedest shaped
rooms that you can't get in or out of. He doesn't know the
simplest thing about circulation or complexity of choice at a
required cost. Unbel ievable! The first time a system like
the Yale Art Gallery is used, then it's all tossed out, for
very good reasons. Another example is the very elaborate
system at the Harvard Theatre. So, just on practical grounds,
I'm very much against flexibility.
HARDY: Question down here.
QUESTION: I'd like to tackle the question of flexibility. I
feel that its benefits are grossly over-stated. It seems to me
that, unless you have all the pieces and then some, all you
produce with a flexible plant is something that's not quite
good enough for anything. I think it's significant that the
one theatre cited here as a really good theatre (Festival
Theatre, Stratford, Ontario) is one that was built with a very
specific and definite point of view. I feel it would be much
more to the point if theatre directors, architects, consultants,
and planners would decide on what they want to do in this
theatre within some limits.
JOHANSEN: That's all very well for a city that can afford,
say, eight different types of theatres. But for the small community of 35,000, we still have not answered the question.
Flexibility of some sort, some form of multi-form theatre,
does come into a community theatre, although I can't think
of any beautifully designed as yet.
LANDEN: I have a question. We've been talking more about
presentation and the theatrical event, but what has the architect brought to the design of theatres that is a contribution?
WEISS: Does an architect want to answer that?
RUDOLPH: I don't know that the architect has contributed
anything to theatre architecture in the 20th Century.
JOHNSON: I agree.
LANDEN: Why hasn't he?
RUDOLPH: Well, it's the perennial question of which comes
first, the chicken or the egg. The directive, the brief if you
will, has to be quite clear. We merely try to put it into
physical form; the product is no better than the directive.
Once it's built, it's very difficult to change. That is to say,
we strike once, and then leave.
LANDEN: The architect, then, isn't given a chance to make
what he thinks is a genuine contribution-like Frank Lloyd
Wright did here in the Guggenheim Museum.
RUDOLPH: You're speaking of this auditorium?
LANDEN: This auditorium and building.
RUDOLPH: Well of course, Mr. ItVright decided exactly how
he wanted it. We were informed that this auditorium, among
other things, is used for art lectures. It didn't matter at all
to him that people in those seats at the sides can't see a
slide on a screen up here. That didn't concern him at all
I'm sure. And yet, at least from my view point, it's a great
building. I'm glad it's here because it's a work of art. This
doesn't mean, however, that you can't design something
which works better but which is still a work of art. But unfortunately quite often the two achievements are considered
at opposite ends of the poles.

[lli}[J THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

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