THEATRE ARTS MONOGRAPHS. No. 1
[Illustration: Façade and entrance of the Beechwood Theatre and
Scarborough School, Scarborough, New York. Welles Bosworth, Architect.
(Photograph by Arnold Genthe.)]
ON BUILDING A
THEATRE
STAGE CONSTRUCTION AND EQUIPMENT
FOR SMALL THEATRES, SCHOOLS
AND COMMUNITY BUILDINGS
BY
IRVING PICHEL
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THEATRE ARTS INC.
1920
Copyright 1920 by THEATRE ARTS, Inc.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I. ARCHITECTURAL TRADITION IN THE THEATRE:
THE AUDITORIUM
II. THE STAGE PLAN
III. PROVISION FOR BACK-STAGE WORKERS
IV. THE EQUIPMENT OF THE STAGE
V. STAGE LIGHTING
VI. STAGE MACHINERY AND SETTINGS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Entrance of the Beechwood Theatre _Frontispiece_
Stage of the _Teatro Farnese_ at Parma 15
Sketch of an Elizabethan Theatre 16
Interior of the Little Theatre, New York 25
Exterior of the Little Theatre, New York 26
The Munich Art Theatre 39
Exterior of the Munich Art Theatre 40
Section of the Munich Art Theatre 41
Auditorium of the Munich Art Theatre 42
The Arts and Crafts Theatre, Detroit 55
The Carnegie Institute Theatre, Pittsburgh 56
The Neighborhood Playhouse, New York 65
The Artist’s Guild Theatre, St. Louis 66
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT--
1. Plan of the _Teatro Olympico_ at Vicenza 19
2. Plans of the Berlin _Volksbühne_ 20
3. Plan and section of the Little Theatre, New York 22
4. Plan of the Carnegie Institute Theatre, Pittsburgh 28
5. First-floor plan of the Munich Art Theatre 30
6. Second-floor plan and section of the Munich Art Theatre 31
7. Plan of the 39th Street Theatre, New York 35
8. Plan of the Beechwood Theatre 37
9. Stage of the _Théâtre du Vieux Colombier_ 71
INTRODUCTION
Architectural ineptitudes are more likely to be perpetuated and in
time condoned than those in any other art. Generally speaking, a bad
painting is scrapped, poor music remains unpublished and unplayed
(along with much good music, no doubt), and bad books, after a time,
cease to be read. But a building is somehow inescapable. Having a
durability that needs no treasuring, and being erected more often for
use than for beauty, a building generally achieves longevity, and the
bad art crumbles no sooner than the good stone. Usefulness, great
initial cost, sturdy stuff, are all against a building’s being put out
of the way merely because it is ugly. Or even, as a matter of fact,
because it does not successfully serve the purpose for which it was
erected.
As people live in a house, or work, day after day, in a store or
factory or public building, they become used to inconveniences, bad
arrangement, and lack of proper facilities. They complain for a time,
perhaps, and then forget. And after a while, when the house has
become home, or the large building has gathered tradition, a sort of
admiration settles upon it. What is really plain ugly or wrong or
bad appears quaint and full of “atmosphere.” And is imitated. Style
and tradition embalm the very features that make the building a bad
building.
In the theatre, this perpetuation of musty, tradition-hallowed
faults of construction has been carried to an extraordinary extreme.
There is more ritual, one might believe, in constructing a stage and
auditorium in accordance with honored custom than there is in the
building of a church. In the more modern theatres, there have been
notable improvements over the theatres of a generation ago; but in the
auditoriums and stages of schools, clubs and societies, and in other
public or semi-public buildings in which such facilities are included
as a sort of side issue, the ancient law is observed. The average
high school stage seems to be inspired by the faint recollection of a
visit to the theatre, supplemented by the examination of old prints
illustrating the stage of Inigo Jones.
* * * * *
To-day, by a concerted movement throughout the country, hundreds of
community houses are being planned as war memorials. These buildings
are designed to include facilities for all the social and recreational
interests of the communities they will serve. Practically all of
them will include stages and auditoriums. At the same time, hundreds
of new school buildings are being planned, and these, too, will have
stages intended to be useful for dramatic productions. But unless
architects have at their disposal much more technical knowledge of
the producers’ requirements than in the past, it is certain that most
of these auditoriums and stages will be bad--as are the auditoriums
and stages in most existing schools. It is to forestall some of the
common mistakes that this paper has been prepared--to describe them in
detail, and to set up against them the ideal features toward which the
designers of such structures should strive.
I believe that the memorial halls are destined to play so large a part
in community life that they must have removed from them every obstacle
to their fullest usefulness. In every community of moderate size and
culture there is a releasing to-day of dramatic impulse, and folks turn
more and more toward the theatre as a mode of group expression. The
Little Theatre movement, with its eighty-five or more centers renewing
their life, now that the war is over, is an evidence of the birth of
a new theatre in this country. Innumerable community pageants and
masques are an indication that people turn to the drama as a means of
expressing their corporate æsthetic. The production of worthy plays by
schools and colleges, the interest such institutions are showing in
the writing of plays and in the fostering of an indigenous drama, the
widespread discussion of the drama and the theatre by clubs, reading
circles and drama leagues, all are portents of a theatre that shall
be a vital and integral part of our daily community life. And at the
very moment these words are being written, the commercial theatre
that has so long held the arena is being convulsed by a revolution
that may mean nothing short of its eventual extinction. The system
of wholesale manufacture and distribution of theatre products is on
the wane, and the theatre as an art, as a social institution of the
rank and significance of the school or the church, may soon have the
field to itself. Hourly, in the little theatres, in community drama
undertakings, in the municipal theatres, in the classrooms and the
clubs, and on the school stages, the new theatre is growing up.
One of the finest services that the memorial community house can render
is to provide a home for the dramatic impulse of the community--not a
makeshift home, but one worthy of the fine art of the drama and the
fine craft of the theatre. It does not matter whether or not the
building is to be large and pretentious or small and inexpensive; but
it matters that it should be fitted to the least detail to fulfill its
function efficiently and beautifully.
I do not write these pages as an architect or as an instructor of
architects, but as one knowing fairly well the conditions which a stage
has to meet when it is used for dramatic representations of any sort.
In the course of a rather varied experience in the theatre--amateur and
professional, little and big, commercial and “art”--I have encountered
practically all the mistakes that are made in stage construction. I
have found them to be of two sorts: mistakes of imitation, and mistakes
of ingenuity.
The first type of mistake is easy enough to account for. Usually, the
auditoriums and stages of schools have been intended primarily for
use as “chapels” or assembly halls. There has been a feeling on the
part of school authorities that the dramatic instinct is in some way
unwholesome and that its expression should be discouraged. As often
as not the design of the school stage has been a conspiracy to thwart
its growth. The attitude of the authorities has recently changed
somewhat, but with the change has come very little more intelligence
in the matter. Where, before, they were careful to obstruct, they are
now merely negligent, leaving the architect to his own devices. The
proceeding is very much at random, and experts are rarely consulted.
It is not wholly the architect’s fault that he builds as he does.
Opportunities to build stages are not frequent; he knows more about
building them than using them, and the models he follows have not been
often enough refreshed by the innovations of theatre experts. His
patterns are largely outmoded. In the largest high school in one of the
greatest midwestern cities, I have seen a stage built no more than five
years ago in which is exemplified almost every stage feature of the
civil war period--a vast curved apron, grooves for wings, and a stage
floor sloping from the back wall toward the footlights. In addition,
there are one or two mistakes peculiar to high schools,--notably the
omission of an entrance to the stage, save on one side.
The other type of error which one encounters is usually made by a
clever man who has observed the more modern practices in building large
theatres and attempts to adapt them to a space utterly inadequate or
wrongly shaped for the purpose. Usually he cramps his space hopelessly
and renders it even less useful for its purpose than it might have been
had no such ingenuity been displayed. The finely equipped stage of the
Artists’ Guild Theatre in St. Louis is an admirable replica in little
of a fully equipped stage of the commercial theatre. But the stagehouse
is so small that the fly gallery at the left and the paint bridge at
the back are a constant embarrassment. The stage would have been more
workable if these devices had not been employed.
These errors of construction, after all, indicate but one thing--that
the stage has been regarded as a characteristic type of structure,
to be built according to established rules, rather than as a place
designed to fulfill a peculiar function. A stage is a space on which
a dramatic action is to be revealed before an audience. Whatever the
space at the builder’s disposal--its size or shape--or whatever the
building he must remodel, that is the only thing to be considered. A
play is to be given. The players must be seen and heard. There must
be means for them to enter the presence of the audience, and exit.
The space on which they appear must be illuminated. Somehow the space
set aside for the player shall be able to suggest, either by means
of scenery as it is commonly understood, or by some conventional
arrangement, permanent or variable, a world in which the character he
portrays might move.
Beginning with this much specification and no more, I propose to work
out with some definiteness the principles underlying the construction
of an ideal stage and the relation of the auditorium to it, bearing in
mind all the while the fact that many of the stages in the War Memorial
Buildings and little theatres are to be small, that large sums cannot
always be spent on them, and that they must in most cases serve a
variety of purposes.
If we remember always the function our stage is to fulfill, we have two
good sources from which to draw practical details for its construction,
and a third source, debatable but interesting. First, there are the
errors which I have referred to. Some of these I shall discuss in
detail in the next chapter. Then, most valuable of all sources, are
the conclusions to be drawn from the practice of the most skilled
architects and artists of the theatre. And finally, to be considered
briefly, there are speculations as to the demands which the drama of
the future may make on the theatre,--demands that can be forecasted
inaccurately at best, but deserving a glance, perhaps, if only to call
attention to the certainty that such demands will be made.
CHAPTER I.
ARCHITECTURAL TRADITION IN THE THEATRE: THE AUDITORIUM
There are, of course, other types of auditorium and platform than
that of the theatre. Churches, lecture halls, and the chambers of
legislative assemblies are planned with the same general end of making
a person or persons at one part of the room audible and visible to
many persons gathered in another part. The ready defense of much bad
planning in school auditoriums is that they were not modelled after
theatres but after one of these other forms. To-day this will not serve
as a defense. Interest in the drama is too widespread, and recognition
of the social potency of the theatre is too general. And whereas
none of these other forms of audience chamber meets the needs of the
theatre, a well-planned theatre can serve any use to which a gathered
community may care to put it.
The rocks which threaten disaster to our intent to devise a room which
may serve as theatre, assembly hall, chapel, or whatever, are, if we go
to beginnings, the traditional form of the theatre and its traditional
_décor_. In the latter, time has wrought many changes. It was once felt
that a theatre was not a theatre if it was not adorned with a wealth
of gilded cupids, masks, tambours, and daggers, surrounded by stucco
wreaths and garlands in high relief, and interspaced with pictured
panels of the muses, especially those most at home in a playhouse.
And, indeed, about those old houses, their garishness now mellowed,
there is a glamor peculiarly of the theatre, and a sweet mustiness
in the air bespeaking audiences of perfumed ladies, long since dead,
the grease-paint and pomade of a long line of players, old scenery,
the fine fustian of the old plays. It is somewhat like the odor in a
garret stored with the treasures of our grandparents, or the mustiness
of an old book. But these are faded flowers that cannot be brought
to life, and the theatre of to-day, its plays and its players, are
moved by a different spirit. Whatever lure these tinselly old temples
have is a reminiscent one. To-day, there may be found theatres with
the simplicity and peace of a church, the unobtrusive luxury of the
drawing-room, and even, by overshooting the mark of simplicity, the
bareness of the lecture-room or the legislative chamber.
The greater sincerity that has come into the theatre, and that fear of
romance that marks the first decade or more of the Twentieth Century,
did much to overcome traditional over-elaboration. There has come, too,
a marked freedom from tradition in the planning of the usual large
show-houses. The more modern theatres are, for the most part, free from
those glaring structural ineptitudes that several centuries of custom
had imposed. In Germany especially (the traditional form of the theatre
did not develop there), great progress has been made, and the theatres
of such architects as Max Littmann and Oskar Kaufmann serve as models.
Stage machinery in Germany has been brought to a point of perfection
not yet reached in any other country. Lautenschlager, Brandt, and
Fortuny (a Spaniard) have contributed inventions that have only
occasionally been experimented with in this country, and then somewhat
half-heartedly.
Tradition clings close to its native heath, nevertheless, and in
England, to which America looks first, perhaps, and in the Latin
countries, it has enough vitality still to be a source of danger. It
may be worth while to scan the history of the tradition, especially
from the “front of the house”, before we consider the stage itself.
For it is from here that the gravest criticism against a stage can be
made,--that it is not easily visible from all parts of the house.[1]
[1] I shall not consider it expedient, in any part of this discussion,
to go into questions of engineering detail. It is assumed that the
architect is equipped or will equip himself with such technical
knowledge. Nor shall I refer to structural modifications brought about
by the regulations of Boards of Fire Underwriters. These matters have
been treated more or less efficiently in several other works, to which
reference will be found in the Appendix.
The form of the stage and the manner in which it has been used have,
throughout the history of the theatre, been the primary factors in
determining the shape of the auditorium. The Greek theatre was devoted
to a ceremonial drama in honor of Dionysus, acted about an altar
erected to him. So the stage took the form of a circular space with an
altar in the center. The seating was arranged in concentric tiers, with
the altar as a center, and more than half surrounded the stage space or
orchestra. Tangent to this circle, and perpendicular to a line drawn
through the center of the seating space, was built the skene, or back
scene. At first, this was merely a dressing tent; later it was a wall,
of wood or stone, masking the dressing-rooms of the actors. It was
pierced with doors, giving access to the stage before it, and served
as the palace, temple, or city wall, in front of which the scene of the
play was laid. There is no satisfactory evidence that it gave on to a
raised space conforming to the later stage platform. Chorus and actors
were on the ground level of the orchestra. All the seats being raised,
the spectator looked down upon the action of the play, and all the
seats were set on radial lines drawn from the altar or center of the
orchestra.
[Illustration: Stage of the _Teatro Farnese_ at Parma, Italy. An
example of the picture-frame stage set into the plastic stage of
an antique theatre. See page 18. (From Hammitzsch’s _Der Moderne
Theaterbau_.)]
[Illustration: Contemporary sketch of an Elizabethan Theatre. (From
Caffin’s _Appreciation of the Drama_.)]
In the Roman theatre, a number of radical changes are to be noted. The
large orchestra is no longer needed for a chorus, and the space is cut
to a semicircle, in which are placed the chairs of the Senators. Since
spectators are now on the ground level, the actors must be raised, and
the stage becomes a long, shallow platform, beginning at the diameter
of the circle. Raised tiers of seats, as in the Greek theatre, surround
the semicircular ground space. At the back of the stage is a wall,
or _scæna_, which also closes in each side of the stage, meeting the
seats at the diameter ends. It is built to the height of the uppermost
tier of seats. Since the stage extended almost the whole width of the
seating, and was raised above the ground, sight lines were ideal.
Between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of classic
learning in Italy, the theatre had no settled home. The drama went
through various vicissitudes, took on new functions, expressed itself
in new forms. The mediæval theatre of mysteries and miracles, after
it had become secularized, went forth from the chancel of the church,
and became a vagrant and an opportunist. It set up its paraphernalia
in the public square, in the inn-yard, in the guild hall. For the
most part, it was a daylight, outdoor recreation, with no fixed
home, and no such special ceremonial functions as in the Greek and
Roman state. It was proletarian, distinctly. With the Renaissance,
in addition to the popular itinerant theatre of the people, there
were two new manifestations. The humanists, in their academies,
revived the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence; the courts of the
ruling families of the free cities became the scenes of magnificent
productions of masques, pageants, “triumphs” and fêtes. These were
usually allegories based on classic mythology or on ancient history,
but presented largely in the form and manner of the popular drama
of the time. To the presentation of the court fêtes, the greatest
artists,--Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci, Giulio Romano, etc.,--brought
their talents. They were given in the gardens of the palaces at night,
illuminated by flares and fireworks. The “pageant” or wheeled stage
of the mediæval popular drama, was used for the display of some
large piece of decoration or machinery. As early as 1491, however,
at Perugia, the first indoor performances were given. The stage went
through various modifications, still keeping its resemblance to the
stage of the mediæval drama, until one invention enforced the most
radical development that had yet taken place,--perspective scenery.
Hammitzsch[2] traces the invention of scenery in painted perspective
to Bramante’s decoration of the sacristy of the Church of San Satiro
in Milan. The wall painting represents in perspective an extended
vista of the sacristy, in an attempt to make it appear larger. The
modern counterpart is the mirrored restaurant. It is certain, at all
events, that Peruzzi employed such scenery in dramatic representations
in Rome before 1510. With these painted prospects came a variety of
changes in the arrangements of the rooms in which the masques were
given; the stage became more a place apart; it was set at the end of
the room rather than along the sides, that the effect of distance
produced by the painted prospects might be enhanced, and the proscenium
frame enclosed it. However, when the theatre as a building designed
specifically for the presentation of plays came into being, the form of
auditorium was not so thoughtfully adapted to this new type of stage as
had been the case with the ancient theatres. For it was to them that
architects turned for models for the auditorium, though the stage was
no longer the stage that went with the amphitheatre form of seating.
[2] Hammitzsch, _Der Moderne Theaterbau_, I. Teil, p. 11.
The theatre of the Academy of Olympians at Vicenza, begun in 1580 by
the architect Palladio and completed in 1584 by his son Scillo (Fig.
1), is practically a Roman theatre roofed over, and equipped with a
stage that compromises with the stage then in mode. It has a sloping
floor (to increase the effect of the perspective) and alleys of scenery
giving off each entranceway in the stage wall.
The Teatro Farnese in Parma, completed in 1619 by Aleotti, is the first
modern theatre. In it appear theatre features that have come down to
our own day,--the elongation of the amphitheatre auditorium into the
horseshoe form, and a stage completely separated from the auditorium
and equipped not only to handle the new scenery but to manipulate it
quickly, so that changes of scene might be effected in the presence
of the audience. In this theatre, Aleotti not only broke away from
the classic stage but also from the multiple setting of the mediæval
stage and definitely introduced the modern form of picture stage. Less
completely did he break away from the classic seating, but he modified
it somewhat to meet new conditions.
[Illustration: Figure 1--Plan of the _Teatro Olympico_, Vicenza.]
With Aleotti passed the period of primitive experiment with a new
instrument. From his day until very recent years, there was to be no
marked change, except the introduction of balconies, a feature already
anticipated in the theatres of other countries and soon employed in
Italy, and the further accentuation of the horseshoe form. The old
circle plan became an ellipse, and still later, as the side balconies
were brought in closer to the stage, an oval.
In England, very much the same history was enacted. The old English
miracle and mystery gave the theatre its platform stage, but the
imitations of Latin comedy first gave it a permanent home.
Public performances of university-made imitations of Roman comedy were
common during the reign of Edward the Sixth, and during the reign of
Elizabeth (1558-1603) seventeen professional theatres were licensed
for the exhibition of contemporary plays. In something like sixty
years, the English drama and the English theatre had grown from crude
beginnings to the highest point they have yet reached. And it was by
professional companies of actors presenting dramas and not by the
court or academic presentations, that the theatre was first given
form. These companies, like the craftsmen bands of miracle and mystery
players, acted wherever they could find a place or wherever they were
bidden,--at court, in great halls, in the provinces, in the church or
the moot hall or the inn, and in London, in the inn-yard or bear pit.
It was the inn-yard that was most used and had the greatest influence
on the form of the playhouse.
[Illustration: Figure 2--Plans of the theatre just completed in Berlin
for the Berliner Volksbühne. The form of the auditorium is typical
of the latest practice in continental and American theatre design
(see page 27). The large amount of stage space, in proportion to the
auditorium, however, is unfortunately not typical of American theatres.
The second-floor plan is included to illustrate the general arrangement
rather than to show the balcony form, which is neither typical nor
particularly good.]
The inns were usually built in the form of a hollow square. A small
passage gave access to the inner court, which was surrounded by
galleries. The stage would be erected at the end of the court opposite
the entrance, and spectators stood on the level ground of the yard or
found seats in the galleries. The bear pits or bull rings were usually
circular buildings with several galleries similar to those of the
inn-yards.
The earliest theatres, built about 1576, were round in shape,
with these characteristic galleries. They seem to have been used
interchangeably for theatrical performances and for bear-baiting.
The centers were open to the sky, like the inn-yards, and only the
galleries and part of the stage were roofed. The stages projected into
the center, and could be viewed, both by spectators on the ground and
by those in the galleries, from three sides. The only contemporary
drawing of the Elizabethan stage is that of Johannes De Witt of the
University of Utrecht, who visited London in 1596. His drawing of the
Swan Theatre differs in many details from the specifications of the
contract, but it gives a general idea of the form of auditorium and
stage. With the building of these theatres,--The Theatre, The Curtain,
The Hope, The Globe, Blackfriar’s, The Swan,--the use of the inn-yards
did not cease, and the Queen’s men performed regularly at The Boar’s
Head in Eastcheap as late as 1603.[3]
[3] Ashley H. Thorndike, _Shakespeare’s Theatre_, p. 42.
Contemporaneously, there were in England, as abroad, spectacular
performances at court, richly costumed and decorated. They were
performed in spacious palace halls, being acted on pageant wagons or on
the main floor, and were viewed from benches and balconies around the
sides. Eventually the pageant gave way to a stage temporarily erected
at one end of the room, the dancers descending to the main floor for
large ensembles and ballets. As early as 1607, scenery, curtains, and
a proscenium arch had been used. The picture stage, with its scenery
in painted perspective, was an importation from Italy, following a
visit there of Inigo Jones, and under his hand reached a high degree of
development during the third decade of the Seventeenth Century.
[Illustration: Figure 3--Above is the section of the Little Theatre,
New York, showing clearly the relationship of the stage, auditorium
and other portions of the building. The dressing-rooms are above the
auditorium and are reached by both stairs and elevator. On the opposite
page is the first-floor plan of the building. It is a notable example
of the best contemporary American practice in auditorium arrangement.
These drawings illustrate the building as originally constructed,
without the recently added balcony and other changes. Harry Creighton
Ingalls and F. B. Hoffman Jr., Associate Architects.]
[Illustration]
With the reopening of the theatres after the Restoration, the practice
of the Italian theatre and opera house superseded the old-English
tradition practically altogether, the only noteworthy remnant being
the social distinction that made the ground level or “pit” the place
of the proletariat in the theatre. The visits of the aristocracy to
the theatre during the Elizabethan period, even when theatres were
under court patronage, were something in the nature of an escapade.
The sheltered galleries were reserved for the gentry, and the unroofed
ground space or pit was open to the crowd. From the galleries,
moreover, a better view of the protruding three-sided stage was to be
had. In the later, wholly-roofed theatres, the stage still protruded
somewhat. A great curved “apron” projected beyond the proscenium.
Nor was the proscenium the mere picture-frame of to-day, but a deep
portal. The balconies extended over the stage to the curtain, so that
spectators at the forward ends of the balconies were directly above the
stage. The balconies were given swelling curves, bringing them further
toward the center of the stage, so that those who occupied these
forward seats could not only see but could be seen. The stage boxes of
to-day are a relic of this type of apron-stage theatre, and to-day,
with the picture frame stage, serve no purpose but the stupid social
one of self-display.
The apron stage preserved one great advantage of the platform
stage: that of keeping the stage grouping, for at least a part of
the audience, plastic. And the dimness of candle or oil footlights
compelled the actors to keep to the front of the stage as much as
possible. The disappearance of the apron has been due wholly to the
improved lighting of the modern theatre. With its disappearance should
go the auditorium features that belonged with it. And even though
there have been occasional reversions to the platform stage and apron
in the productions of Granville Barker or Jacques Copeau, there is no
occasion for the revival of the horseshoe balcony or the stage box. In
later pages of this paper, where I deal specifically with the stage, I
shall recommend provision being made for an apron, either permanent or
movable; but the auditorium should not revert.
[Illustration: Auditorium of the Little Theatre, New York. This
building, constructed for Winthrop Ames in 1912, still stands as
probably the best-designed small theatre in America. This photograph
shows the absence of boxes, the carefully adjusted floor slope, and the
harmony of all the decorative elements, although it hardly does justice
to the intimate “feel” of the room. Recently large changes have been
made in the building, a balcony having been added and a new decorative
scheme carried out. Harry Creighton Ingalls and F. B. Hoffman Jr.,
Associate Architects.]
[Illustration: Exterior of the Little Theatre, New York. Harry
Creighton Ingalls and F. B. Hoffman Jr., Architects. (From _The New
Movement in the Theatre_, by courtesy of Mitchell Kennerley.)]
With modern resources in lighting and construction engineering, most
of the “practical” considerations that determined the form of the old
houses do not apply, and the social considerations that called for
the display of certain parts of the audience are not even tacitly
acknowledged in the more democratic theatre of to-day, except at the
opera. Accordingly, the procedure of the architect should be governed
wholly by considerations of utility.
The first consideration is that of visibility. A sight line drawn from
any seat in the auditorium should give a clear view of the entire
stage. As a general rule, therefore, the seating space should be very
little wider than the stage opening. A sight line drawn from a seat to
the right or the left of the proscenium arch past the corresponding
side of the arch will cut off that corner of the stage. The closer the
seat is to the stage the greater is the part of the stage concealed.
(See Fig. 4.) Accordingly, it is the custom in most modern theatres to
narrow the auditorium as it approaches the stage, so that the front of
the seating is no greater in width than the width of the proscenium.
The rear of the auditorium is slightly wider. (See Figs. 2 and 3.)
As a concession to this plan, the back of a stage setting is often
narrower than the front. That is, in the case of an interior setting,
the side walls of the room represented, instead of being set at right
angles to the back wall, as is the case in most rooms, are set at an
angle corresponding to the sight lines drawn from the extreme right
and left ends of the last row of seats. This is purely a convention,
required by the shape of the playhouse, and pardonable on the ground
that it is less irritating to look at a distorted room than to be
unable to see its corners.
At all events, this form of auditorium affords a higher visibility
than did the old horseshoe shape. The most noteworthy move toward the
adoption of this type of seating was made by Richard Wagner in the
construction of the Opera House at Bayreuth. Here the auditorium is in
the shape of a fan or blunt-nosed wedge, with the stage at the narrow
end. The most approved type of modern auditorium follows this form
to some extent. In such theatres as the Künstler Theater in Munich
(Littmann), or his Prinz-Regenten Opera House, this plan is developed.
(See Fig. 5.)
The general plan of the best modern American theatres is rectangular
with the side walls converging toward the stage, beginning at a point
about two-thirds of the way from the back. The seats are in concentric
rows following a curve drawn from a center approximately at the middle
of the back wall of the stage. The back wall of the auditorium follows
the curve of the seats. The Little Theatre in New York is built on this
plan. Where balconies are included, they have only a slight curve,
approximately the same as that of the orchestra seats.
[Illustration: Figure 4--Plan of the theatre at the Carnegie Institute
of Technology, Pittsburgh. The sight-lines from the sides of the
auditorium are badly distorted, evidently to preserve the novel
architectural effect of an elliptical room. By drawing lines from the
outmost seats in the first five rows, it can be seen that spectators
there will be shut off from any view of more than half the stage space.
The one outstanding feature here is the large amount of space given to
scenery storage-room and green-room.]
It is a common fault of school auditoriums that the seating is extended
to the right and the left of the stage, so that a considerable number
of seats are valueless for seeing. They preserve, also, for no known
reason, other than that it has been the theatre practice, the apron,
projecting far beyond the line of the proscenium arch.
A second requirement for assuring direct sight lines from every seat
to the stage is an inclined floor. In many cases, this appears an
insuperable difficulty. Auditoriums which must be used as gymnasiums or
dance halls require level floors. Often, then, the stage is elevated
at a greater height from the floor than usual, in the belief that this
device will overcome the lack of an inclined floor. On the contrary,
it merely makes the spectator tilt his head at an uncomfortable angle,
makes the players appear preternaturally tall, and, as they move toward
the back of the stage, conceals the lower part of their bodies. The
best height for a stage, whether with inclined or flat auditorium, is
three feet, nine inches.
A number of means may be used to provide an inclined floor when
performances are to be given in a hall which must be used for many
purposes. In Copley Hall, Boston, movable risers were installed, each
row of seats being lifted about six inches above the row in front. This
scheme has the advantage of being the least costly at the beginning,
but this consideration is outweighed by a host of disadvantages. The
trestles and platforms occupy a large storage space when not in use,
they are not a hundred percent safe, and they emit a squeak with every
footstep. Moreover, they increase, to some degree, the fire hazard.
Far more ingenious and needing no storage space is the device employed
by Laurence Ewald in building the Little Theatre of the Artists’ Guild,
St. Louis. The theatre occupies a wing of the building used ordinarily
as an art gallery, and has a level floor. When performances are to be
given, the theatre seats are bolted to the floor, and the back half of
the floor, which is built in one piece, hinged at the middle of the
auditorium, is lifted at the rear by a four-ton hydraulic jack until a
pitch of about one inch per foot is obtained.
Mr. Ewald has provided me with the following account of the
construction of the floor:
“The movable part of the floor consists of a floor-bearing structure
of steel which extends from a hinge half-way between the back of the
house and the stage, and parallel with the front of the stage, to the
back of the house.
“This structure is made up of four I-beams at right angles to the
front of the stage, and another I-beam attached to them at right
angles at the back end of the house. In the cellar, immediately
beneath this cross beam, is placed an ordinary four-ton hydraulic
jack, which, when operated, revolves the back floor structure on the
hinges at the middle of the house. When the floor has been raised
thirty inches, four legs suspended from the four I-beams drop of
their own weight into position and support the load, and the jack is
removed.”
Had it not been for the structure of the room under the auditorium,
Mr. Ewald would have constructed the _entire_ floor on a steel frame,
as described above, and balanced it on an axle at the center, where
the hinges now are. With suitable space under the front half of the
floor, it could have been tipped on its axle, depressing the front and
elevating the back, giving an incline to the entire auditorium. Built
thus, the floor would require no jack and would be amply supported at
three points; or, with the understructure built in the form of a
truss, the floor could be made to rock on the apex of the truss. With
this arrangement, the front half of the floor would have support along
its entire length.
[Illustration: Figure 5--First-floor plan of the Munich Art Theatre.
Note that the seats shown here form only a part of the main floor
section, as indicated in the plans on the page opposite. Max Littmann,
Architect.]
[Illustration: Figure 6--Above is a section showing the arrangement
and structural features of the Munich Art Theatre. Below is the
second-floor plan. It should be noted that the seats here are not a
balcony but a continuation, on the same floor slope, of the seats shown
in the plan on the page opposite.]
Another device, proposed for a great municipal auditorium in a western
city, will not so readily commend itself for general use, because
of the great initial cost and because of the depth of cellarage
required under the auditorium. Here the entire floor was to make a
semi-revolution. On one side of the revolving plane was a smooth
flooring; on the other, seats were bolted. When the building was to be
used as a theatre, the side with the seats was turned uppermost and
held at the proper pitch. When the hall was used for a ball or for a
dog show, or any function needing a level floor, the smooth side was
turned up and secured at a horizontal position.
When the floor can be built with a permanent slope, either a simple
incline or an incline in the form of a parabolic curve is used. The
latter form is preferable.
In many places the fire laws limit the pitch of the floor to one inch
per foot. With rows of seats spaced at the legal minimum of thirty-two
inches this does not give enough clearance for the people in each row
to see over the heads of those in the row in front. For a decent degree
of comfort, a little seating capacity should be sacrificed, and the
rows spaced thirty-six inches apart.
If possible, there should be a gradient of two inches to the foot,
giving a difference of elevation between rows of six inches. If the
law prevents the two-inch grade, the same effect can be produced by
“staggering” the seats. That is, the seats of alternate rows are set in
direct alignment, while the intermediate rows are set half a seat-width
to the right or left. Thus spectators will look between the shoulders
of those immediately in front of them, and will be able to see over the
heads of those in the second row in front, who, by such an arrangement,
will be sitting in a direct line with them. There will thus be a
six-inch difference between each two rows of seats.
Beyond all these considerations of adequate sight lines, however, there
is another requirement far more important, far less well understood,
even in the light of any guiding or misguiding tradition, by the
average architect. That is the requirement of good acoustics. Until
quite recently, this was left wholly to accident. Buildings were
erected, and the acoustic properties were tested afterwards. If they
chanced to be good, the owners were to be congratulated. If they were
bad, great sums were spent stringing piano wires, or nets of raw silk,
or padding the walls. And then, quite as often as not, the acoustics
remained bad.
The late Wallace Sabine, however, demonstrated that it was possible to
predict the acoustic properties of a proposed structure with scientific
accuracy, and to forestall defects by structural modification. In _The
American Architect_, Dec. 31, 1913, Professor Sabine described the
experiments by which the causes of the acoustic difficulties in the New
Theatre (now the Century) in New York were discovered and overcome, and
the methods which he employed in helping plan a number of the theatres
designed by C. H. Blackhall, perhaps the most experienced theatre
architect in the United States. This paper and others by Professor
Sabine should be read by any architect who contemplates building
an auditorium of any sort. The matter is too vital to be left to a
hit-or-miss chance of success.
With an auditorium from every part of which the stage can be seen, from
every seat of which all the words of the actors can be heard, there
will be little fault to be found. Its comfort, its ventilation, its
isolation from street noises, its protection against fire--these are
matters which need not be treated here, and which have been written
of elsewhere more adequately than I could write of them. As for its
decoration, there are no rules to govern that. If the designer has
bad taste, there is no help for it, except to avoid him. If he is an
artist, let him exercise his art on the interior of the auditorium and
forget the sort of thing that has traditionally adorned theatres and
wedding cakes.
But, most of all, let him talk with the artist, if there should luckily
be one, who is going to work in the particular theatre, and learn from
him the sorts of play that are to be done, and the æsthetic of the
group that is to present them, if it has one, and so find some clue to
the atmosphere the auditorium should evoke. From then on, his task is
one of high creation.