Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 1977 - 18

Behind the main stage are three rear stages protected
by fire and sound reducing doors. The opening production
spilled over into these in spite of the large dimensions of
the stage itself: I am tempted to add - of course! The
drum revolve is made up of two elevators which can be
lowered 28 feet into the basement. This is in fact the level
of the workshops and of the Lyttelton stage. At this level
one of these half-segments of the revolve can be exchanged for another also complete with its setting. While
this is going on a safety barrier can be raised between
stage and audience (another earthquake zone?). As the
stage is generally 1 foot 9 inches above the floor level of
the front row of seats and made up of steps this is an es'
sential precaution. Indeed what is, or is not, reasonably
safe from the actors and staff point of view has yet to
be worked out. There is, as already pointed out, little experience in mechanised staging on this scale in Britain;
furthermore the implications of ou r new Health and Safety at Work Act cast a cloud over the scene.
The low stage riser allows actors readily to enter and
exit from the direction of the audience. By removing a
few seats each side of the front stalls, ramps can be exposed to allow this to take place under the side terraces.
The rear terrace allows lighting, sound and other rooms
to be excellently positioned at the rear of the stalls instead of high up at the real rear of the house. Although
no seat anywhere can be considered as really far from
the stage this half-way position is the ideal for monitoring the lighting. It is especially necessary for the stage
picture to dominate the lighting operator as the Light·
board type of control both here and in the Lyttelton can
tempt him to keep his eye too much on the V.D.U. displays right before his nose. Upon the three cathode ray
tubes is shown figuratively everything that is going on. If
we are not careful the operator could be a kind of optical
accountant head down looking after the figures on his
computer display while visual chaos reigned upon the
stage! Personally, I firmly believe that the aim should not
be to get the lighting right by the plot so much as to get
it to look right and feel right. This is of course where the
artist operator comes in and the value of any memory
system must be judged by the freedom it allows one to
depart from what has been recorded. Improvisation is just
as important as the precise reproduction of each effect.
In the Olivier the majority of the stage lighting hangs
in full view. This is appropriate to this theatre, the lights
form part of the auditorium and stage set - a bridge
between the two. Some of the spotlights are clustered on
four vertical features, known as stalactites, accessible from
a ladder down their centres instead of the usual horizontal arrangement imposed by the other Iighting bridges out
in the auditorium. The stalactites could with advantage
have been longer - making them into functional chandeliers, a real feature instead of an apology.
The lighting layout devised by Richard Pilbrow and
his Theatre Projects team aims at being a saturation rig
intended for the repertoire rather than to be used all at
once on one super production. There are 498 dimmers in
the Lyttelton and 622 in the Olivier. It is possible, I believe, that had the dimmer rooms been larger there would
18

SUMMER,1977

have been more. Anyway the noble aim is to avoid load
patching but there is in a sense 'memory' patching since
only 260 dimmers can be in play at any particular moment of a production - due to limitation imposed by the
visual display units. There is a stage lighting main of
over 1 megawatt for the Olivier which would allow all
dimmers to be in use, however. Need I go on - we all
know the temptations?
It is when we see the massed ranks of exposed spotlights today that we are brought face to face with the
difference between theory and practice. This shows if
we compare a theatre scheme much admired in the
twenties with the Olivier. The theatre by Norman Bel
Geddes never got built but was drawn out in some detail.
It too had its stage across the corner and owed something
to the Greek theatre plan but it is when we compare the
theoretical one of the twenties with the practical one
of today that the contrasts appear. There is still something of the same faith in machinery. Bel Geddes had
his drum revolve though in his case the stage floor was
expected to descend to the basement for all scene
changes - there was no grid or wings. When it comes
to the limitless powers of Iight we have had more sense
than to emulate the great Bel Geddes cyclorama dome
over the entire stage and auditorium. Some of us may
not be disillusioned with the powers of machinery yet
but we have learned that stage Iighting does not appear
by magic but from limitless clutter of equipment - the
cumbersome candelabra of our time.
Notes:
1. Lilian Baylis: The Lady of the Old Vic, Richard Findlater.
London: Allen Lane, N.D.
2. The National Theatre of Great Britain, Theatre Projects Can·
sultants Limited. London: 1975.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
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