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Title: On building a theatre: Stage construction and equipment for small theatres, schools and community
Author: Pichel, Irving
Language: English
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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painting is scrapped, poor music remains unpublished and unplayed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.
CHAPTER II.
THE STAGE PLAN
We are accustomed to regard as the stage of a theatre that part on
which the actors appear, immediately behind the footlights, bounded,
right and left, by the proscenium arch. As a matter of fact, this is
a very small part of the stage. From the construction of many school
stages and many of the stages of the little and experimental theatres,
I am convinced that this misconception really exists. It is true that
many little theatre groups have been obliged to choose between a
cramped stage and no stage at all. On the whole, the work they have
done, in the light of their limited equipment, is nothing short of
amazing.
One well-known little theatre director has declared to me that he
values these inadequacies because of the ingenuity required to overcome
them. And I imagine that very frequently admiration for this sort of
ingenuity passes current for the evaluation on its own merits of work
done in these theatres.
No director could be hindered, however, by having excellent facilities
at his command. His imagination, instead of visioning means of
overcoming too low a roof to his stage or the lack of off-stage space,
would be free to interpret the matter of the play itself. It would be
a great pity to lose the work of many earnest groups who have been
presenting plays in remodelled dwellings, saloons, or stables, with
what appear to be hopelessly inadequate stages. But if a building is to
be erected for the purpose of housing a theatre, it will mean greater
freedom for the artists (in fact or intent) who are to occupy it, if
they are given every facility that foresight can provide.
The stage, properly speaking, is about five times as large as the part
of it that is visible to the audience when the curtain is raised. The
spaces to right and left of the proscenium arch should equal the center
space within the proscenium. Then there is the space above the stage,
the space under the stage and the space required adjacent to the stage
for dressing rooms, shops, etc.
Dimensions for practically all of these spaces can best be derived
from the dimensions of the proscenium arch. The width of the opening
generally is equal to half the width of the auditorium at its widest
part. It may be somewhat less or somewhat greater, but it is well to
establish a minimum of twenty-four feet for the width of the opening.
Less than this will not give adequate space without serious crowding
for the presentation of scenes with more than a very few people.
[Illustration: Figure 7--Plan of the Thirty-Ninth Street Theatre, New
York. An example of good planning for sight-lines, illustrating an
auditorium with center aisle.]
In height the proscenium should be fittingly proportioned to the
width, with a minimum of about twelve feet in mind. A stage too low
and too narrow will throw the human figure out of proportion to his
surroundings on the stage. Let us assume that we have a stage with a
proscenium opening twenty-four feet wide and not less than twelve feet
high. The aggregate off-stage space right and left should then equal
about twenty-four feet, making the total width of the stage-house
forty-eight feet. The depth of the stage should be not less than
twenty-four feet. The height of the stage, from floor to “rigging loft”
should be not less than thirty-six feet. The cellar under the stage
should be not less than ten or twelve feet deep. This is merely a rough
guide, using the measurements of the proscenium as index.
Claude B. Hagen, construction engineer for the Century Theatre in
New York, suggests a “rule of seven” for the derivation of these
dimensions, making all of them multiples of seven. The following table
gives his measurements for stages of various sizes:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Proscenium width 28 ft. 35 ft. 42 ft.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Proscenium height Seven feet less than width
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Height of loft 56 ft. 63 ft. 70 ft. to 84 ft.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Height of fly-gallery floor 28 ft. 35 ft. (7 ft. back of proscenium)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Width of stage 42 ft. 56 ft. 70 ft.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Depth of stage 21 ft. 28 ft. 35 ft. to 42 ft.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cellar 14 ft. 21 ft.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Distance between border lights Seven feet from center to center
----------------------------------------------------------------------
These measurements, while customary, are hardly ideal, and are
generalizations from the more or less arbitrary dimensions imposed by
high land values. It goes without saying that however small a theatre
is, its stage should be as large as the plot on which the building
stands will allow.
The off-stage space at the sides is particularly important. Without it,
entrances to the scene are cramped, there is no place to pack furniture
and scenery for other acts than the one in progress on the stage, and
there is no place for the actors to await their entrances. Such space
is needed, often, for the suggestion of other rooms than the one before
the audience, and an important part of the lighting of the scene is
done from the sides.
Next in importance is the space above the stage, the “flies,” in the
technical vocabulary of the theatre. In this space, above the line of
vision of the spectator, much scenery is hung until needed, lighting
units are suspended, and with good overhead space, effects of height
can be produced and ampler places revealed than that in which the
audience sits.
The cellar under the stage is of especial importance where the
off-stage spaces at the sides are cramped. It is used for the storage
of scenery and furniture, for stage machinery and for entrances from a
lower floor (with the aid of traps), and it often provides passage from
one side of the stage to the other during the progress of a scene that
occupies the entire depth of the stage. In some theatres, a part of the
stage floor may be lowered by an elevator, and properties or furniture
disposed of during the changes of scene, thus preventing crowding of
the stage-house itself.
[Illustration: Figure 8--Plan of the Beechwood Theatre and Scarborough
School. The entire space under the stage is given up to a workshop, and
over the vestibule and lobby is a library. Additional dressing-rooms
and a property-room are over the stage-level dressing-rooms shown here.
The building is practically a complete theatre with two school-room
wings. Welles Bosworth, Architect.]
Hardwood should never be used for the stage floor. The architect of the
excellent Arts and Crafts Theatre in Detroit, in his desire to use only
the best of building materials, specified a stage floor of maple. As a
consequence, it is almost impossible to support scenery by the use of
stage braces, screwed to the floor with a stage screw or “peg.” Soft
wood into which the pegs bite easily, is the only sort to use.
It is particularly important in small theatres that the stage walls be
as unbroken by entrances as possible. At least two there must be: a
large high door, opening to an alley or street, by which scenery may
be brought in and taken out, and a small one, a stage entrance for the
people of the theatre. It is well so to contrive the building that this
one door gives access to the stage from the dressing-room corridors,
shops, cellar, stairs, street and front of the house. With many doors
opening on the stage, it is difficult to find space for the stacking
of scenery without blocking them. It is often desirable to have one
dressing room very near the stage or opening immediately upon it, not
for the use of the star, but for the player who may happen to have the
quickest change of costume.
Stages intended for the housing of large productions and traveling
companies should include also a fly gallery, built out from one of
the side walls of the stage at a height of not less than twenty feet
from the floor. The ropes by which drop curtains, ceilings, and
“frame-pieces” of scenery are raised and lowered are operated from
this floor and are tied off to pins fastened in the gallery railing,
technically known as the pin-rail. In smaller stages, of no great
height, it will save space, construction costs and operating expense to
have the pin-rail at the floor level.
Before discussing the equipment of the stage in detail, I wish to
digress for a moment and consider the provisions to be made for the
work that is done out of sight of the audience,--by the carpenters and
property men, the seamstresses, the electricians, and the actors before
they are ready to appear before the footlights.
[Illustration: Auditorium of the Munich Art Theatre. The plates on
this and the following three pages, and the plans on pages 30 and
31 illustrate the interior and exterior appearance, as well as the
structural features, of a modern European theatre which comes close
to being a model for architects everywhere. Above is a view of the
auditorium as seen from a point near the boxes at the back. The
decoration in paneled wood (for acoustic reasons), the absence of
proscenium boxes, the uniform slope of the auditorium, and the simple
decorative curtain, are characteristic of the best contemporary
European practice. (The photographs are reproduced by courtesy of the
architect, Prof. Max Littmann.)]
[Illustration: Exterior of the Munich Art Theatre.]
[Illustration: A cross-section model of the Munich Art Theatre, showing
clearly the arrangement of boxes, auditorium, exits, stage, hidden
orchestra pit, double proscenium, etc.]
[Illustration: A part of the auditorium of the Munich Art Theatre as
seen from the stage. This is interesting chiefly as illustrating the
arrangement of the boxes at the back, and the unbroken tiers of seats
with side exits.]
CHAPTER III.
PROVISION FOR BACK-STAGE WORKERS
I have noted in an earlier chapter that the architecture of the theatre
is always governed by the function of the drama performed in it. The
use to which the stage is put determines always the shape and style of
the auditorium. There is no doubt that some great change is soon to
overtake the theatre; the drama will assume a new form, demanding a new
mode of presentation, and so a new theatre. Presently I shall discuss
what forms this new theatre may assume, but for the moment it is enough
to observe that it will be marked by a closer bond, one way or another,
between the audience and the players, between the audience and the play.
For a long while, the theatre has shrouded itself in a sort of
pseudo-mystery. “Back-stage” has had the lure for the layman of a
hat from which rabbits are drawn by a conjurer. Of course, under
inspection, such a hat is found to be as empty as any other, bearing
even, in most cases, the mark of a respectable maker. And the
inspection deepens the mystery. The stage has shunned this sort of
scrutiny, because our drama of to-day and our theatre live mostly
by “effects”. And if the effect is stripped of wonder, the theatre
is almost as good as dead. What a sign of weakness this is! If the
snowstorm is seen to be bits of paper shaken out of a bag, and if it is
found that the imitation wind is produced by the scraping of paddles on
canvas, the public will lose interest in the theatre.
And the people of the stage! How hungrily necks are craned for a
glimpse of the popular actor or of the beautiful actress, should
one pass in a hotel or on the street. They inhabit that mysterious,
unexplored back-stage. And a clever manager will encourage this sort
of curiosity by advising his people not to show themselves in the
street, except unavoidably. The matter of seeing the actors close
may be dismissed with a quip,--they might be found respectable upon
acquaintance, or, more likely, dull. But the truth about the back of
the theatre is the truth about the conjurer’s hat,--there’s nothing
there to see, except the pitiful little bag of tricks, the snowstorm
and the wind. There is not even the maker’s label. But this emptiness
is not all, for as with the hat, it’s quite engrossing while the
rabbits are there. The worst of it is that it is so poor, so mean
often, so dirty, so cramped and littered, to the last, dark cranny,
that we wonder how the actor-rabbits endure it all and keep their fur
so white.
A rudimentary shame on the part of the managers, and a very human pride
on the part of the actors, have helped to keep these matters from the
theatregoer. Out front, there is warmth, light, comfort, elegance. The
spectator is lulled into forgetfulness of work, and the play casts
its spell over him. But a glimpse of the wretched barrenness of the
dressing-room or shop would make short work of his peace of mind, just
as a knowledge of the tricks sheers them of illusion.
These things are becoming known, because the bond between the spectator
and the theatre-worker is already being formed. When it is full grown,
such facts will not be discovered; they will no longer exist. For
two movements that are bound to affect the theatre of the future are
bringing the lay public clambering over the footlights and crowding
in at the stage door. One, the Little Theatre Movement, is almost
altogether a lay insurgency. In scores of communities, it has made
its way; tradesmen, students, clerks, mechanics, people of leisure
and working people with a little leisure, have come together and in a
short time have plumbed the silly little mysteries of back-stage, and
have brought into their theatres a little bit of the real Mystery of
life and art that belongs there. And the more extensive, democratic
Community Drama movement is making play-actors and theatre-workers of
thousands who have heretofore been auditors. There will always be a
professional group of artists of the theatre, but in their theatres
there will be a close understanding and perhaps a physical connection
between the audience and the stage; in the great, popular theatre it
is conceivable that there will be very little distinction between the
auditorium and the stage. It may be that they will be interchangeable
or be one and the same. Then, it is certain that the conditions of
comfort and convenience that apply to the one shall apply fully to the
other, that the actor shall be as well cared for in the theatre as the
public.
Let those who are building to-day look to this: Visit the
dressing-rooms, see the workplaces of the other workers of the
theatre,--the carpenter, electrician, property-man, and wardrobe
workers. Consider these workplaces, not only in comparison with the
front of the house, but as fit places for human beings to spend as much
as an hour a day. Consider them as places where work that should have
in it joy and beauty may develop.
The community theatres that are going to be built within the next few
years are bound to be a blessing to those who have access to them. But,
for the most part, their projectors and builders are laymen, knowing
little of the vast work of preparation that must be done before a play
is ready for an audience. Where the commercial theatre builder does not
care how the actor and the theatre mechanic fare, the lay builder is a
little likely to overlook their existence. I have seen dozens of clubs
and schools, with fairly adequate stages and auditoriums, but with no
more than two small dressing-rooms, one for men and one for women. I
have seen several with no more than one, originally intended for a
closet but set aside as a dressing-room when it was discovered that
something of the sort is indispensable.
Aside from the fact that the players and the workmen are human beings,
quite often of the same tastes and breeding as those who occupy the
front of the theatre, they have a long and exacting work to perform,
most of which can be done only in the theatre. And their domain is
the part of the theatre behind the proscenium line. The actors must
rehearse for several weeks before the play can be acted. They must
be in the theatre some time before the curtain rises on the play and
they leave it some time after the play has ended and the audience has
gone home. For they must dress and “make-up”, and should be allowed a
little while to shake off John Smith and enter into Hamlet. There is,
moreover, scenery to be built and painted, furniture and properties to
be made, lights to be arranged, effects to be devised, costumes to be
cut, fitted and sewed.
How should these activities and these workers be taken care of?
First, the actors.
For their rehearsals, first of all, the stage should be used. If the
stage is otherwise occupied, with scenery, or with the rehearsals of
another production, as it often is in busy theatres, there should be
another place in the same building where rehearsals can be held, a room
with as large a floor as that of the stage proper. But, as often as
possible, the stage should be used for rehearsals.
Then, for their preparation to appear in a performance, their dressing
and make-up. Dressing-rooms must be provided, sufficient in number to
accommodate the cast of the average play without crowding more than
two people to a room. Under ideal conditions, each player will have a
separate room, so that he can prepare for his performance, mentally
as well as physically, without disturbance. The rooms should be not
less than eight by ten feet, should each have a window, and should
be heated in winter. Against one wall there should be a long shelf or
table, about eighteen inches wide. Above it, should be a good mirror,
with lights so placed that the face of an actor seated at the shelf
and looking into the mirror will be well illuminated. Under the shelf,
there should be a drawer in which make-up materials may be kept.
Each dressing room should be provided with a washstand and with hot
and cold water. There should be a high clothes-closet or wardrobe in
which costumes may be hung. Where this is impractical, there should
be sufficient hooks to accommodate a number of costumes, and means of
covering them with a cloth to protect them from dust. Above the clothes
hooks, or at the top of the closet, should be a shelf for hats, shoes,
etc.
It is well to provide from eight to twelve dressing-rooms, each large
enough to accommodate two persons. In addition, there should be two
large rooms, each with space for about a dozen persons, these to be
used for chorus, supernumeraries, or players of small parts.
On each dressing-room floor there should be proper toilet
accommodations for each sex. Also, the ideally equipped building will
have shower baths. In these days of Dunsany, Hindus and Arabs and
Ethiopians may be met in many a town en route from the little theatre
to their homes, there to wash themselves white.
It has been noted that, to preserve the unbroken wall space of the
stage as far as possible, dressing-rooms should not open directly upon
the stage floor. In many theatres, they are ranged off galleries above
the stage. On the whole, this is inadvisable. A dressing-room door,
inopportunely opened, will let a beam of light fall upon the stage,
often spoiling the lighting of a scene. The slamming of doors, sound
of voices, and other noises are almost unavoidable. And the argument
usually advanced for so arranging dressing-rooms--that the actors
can hear what is going on on the stage and thus be in time for their
entrances, is fallacious. This very fact breeds in them a confidence
that makes them careless, and they are more often late than if they
were required to wait for their cues on the stage.
One more thing should be provided for the actor, not indispensable, but
making for fellowship and comfort--the feature known in German theatres
as the Konverzations-Zimmer and in older English and American theatres
as the Green Room. This should be a comfortable lounge, furnished more
as a room in a home or club, than in a theatre, and stocked with books
and periodicals relating to the theatre.
With the actor carefully considered in the matter of cleanliness
and cheerfulness backstage, a new pleasure will come into his work.
Likewise, with the other workers of the theatre. Closest to the actor,
perhaps, the wardrobe people. In the ideal theatre two rooms should
be set aside for the wardrobe, one for the making of clothes and
another for their storage. The sewing room, needless to say, should be
well lighted, should have a space partitioned off as a fitting room,
should be provided with proper closets in which to hang dresses in the
process of making, and should be large enough to allow for a number
of seamstresses and a large cutting table. There should be a built-in
closet equipped with shelves and drawers in which to store cloths,
trimmings, findings, etc., for the making of costumes. For the costume
storage room, a loft space that might otherwise go to waste can often
be utilized. This room should have long closets, fitted with bars on
which dresses can be hung, and should have drawers in which other items
of dress can be packed--hats, shoes, wigs, stockings, tights, etc.
These drawers should be numerous enough to allow for the sorting out of
costumes by colors or periods, and should be properly labelled.
Each of the mechanical departments should likewise have its two rooms,
one a shop and the other for storage. The carpenter, if the scenery
is built in the theatre, often can use the space under the stage
for building. If he cannot build his scenery there, either another
place should be set aside or the scenery should be built outside
the building. He should not use the stage. It must be kept free for
rehearsals. He should have, however, a room in which to keep his
tools, draw his plans, and file his ground and framing plans, bills,
time-sheets, etc.
The matter of storage space for scenery is to be determined wholly by
the amount of space at the builder’s disposal and the use to which
the theatre is to be put. If many productions are to be made, a space
should be provided for a scene-dock, adjacent to the stage but separate
from it, unless the building is small, in which case a storehouse
elsewhere may be used. Scenery should not be allowed to accumulate
on the stage. The theatre of the Carnegie Institute of Technology at
Pittsburgh has an excellent dock, shown on the ground plan, Figure 4.
The property department needs a shop for the making of furniture,
papier mâché work, etc., and a storage room in which furniture and
other stage furnishings can be stored. Often one large room can be made
to do for both.
The electrical department likewise must not be overlooked. There must
be closets for the keeping of incandescent bulbs, lamp dyes, plugs,
connectors, cable, wire, and other electrical hardware, gelatines,
color frames, etc. There must be provision in the shop for the dyeing
of lamps, testing, repairing, etc.
The property and electrical departments, like the carpenter’s, must
also be fitted in a sense as offices, for the keeping of electric and
property plots, full records relating to past and coming productions,
bills, orders, receipts, time sheets, and like data.
It may be objected at this point that these various demands presuppose
a large-sized plant with elaborate equipment. As a matter of fact,
they apply quite as much to the tiniest of little theatres--even more
so, for in such, proper ordering of space and isolation of separate
activities is equivalent, in getting efficiency, to more ample space
less carefully sub-divided. For, inevitably, these various kinds of
work must be done in the theatre, and the people who do them must find
space here or there for their work, and the things they make must be
kept somewhere. Unless each job and each product is assigned its proper
corner, the building is soon a clutter of stuff, accumulating dust,
getting jostled about and broken. Then we are back at the old, dark,
dirty theatre we are trying so hard to improve upon. The provisions
discussed above, though they are not on the stage, are very much a part
of it, and go far toward making it an instrument of precision.
In community buildings and schools, the various workshops, rehearsal
room, etc., can often be combined with rooms serving other purposes.
In any case some provision for them is quite as important as the open
stage itself.
CHAPTER IV.
THE EQUIPMENT OF THE STAGE[4]
[4] Throughout this chapter I am at a disadvantage in that I do not
thoroughly believe in the standards which I here set up. It is true
that I am recommending higher standards than usually prevail in the
sort of building which is here considered, or higher even than those
that prevail in the well-equipped professional theatre. It is true,
also, that these recommendations as viewed in the light of the known
and tried methods of play production, are in the nature of reform and
improvement. As such, I believe in them. As viewed in the light of the
theatre of the future, I do not so thoroughly believe in them. But
only a revolution in theatre methods can refresh our conceptions of
what sort of place this theatre of the future is to be. This matter we
shall leave for discussion in a final chapter. I should be ill-advised
in advising ambitious groups interested in building adequate little
playhouses to set aside finally the known and tried methods of play
production and the stage they involve for methods adapted to a type of
drama that may not yet exist, for methods that must be evolved only
by sensitive and versed artists of the theatre. It is true that many
signal new ideas come into any art through workers who do not know or
trouble about tradition, young hands who blunder upon valuable methods
through attacking their medium experimentally. For instance, Antoine, a
gas-fitter by trade, who began his theatrical career as an amateur, by
his daring innovations in the _Théâtre Libre_, renewed the life-force
of the French theatre. But, in the main, I believe that the most
important revolutionary changes in the stage are wrought by men who are
thoroughly versed in the old practice, as was Gordon Craig. Hence, if
the little theatres and community playhouses continue for the coming
generation with a theatre modelled after the best practice of this our
day, they may in good season contribute mightily to that theatre of the
future to which I referred. Hence, for the present it is best that I
continue in the rôle of reporter, rather than that of prophet.
The outstanding point about the stage, apart from the life the actors
bring to it, is that it is a machine. It is a mechanical device used to
aid in the setting forth of a play, much as a potter’s wheel aids the
maker of vases, or a mortise and tenon machine helps the cabinet-maker.
Perhaps the cabinet-maker is no less a hand-craftsman because he uses
the mechanical device to shorten his labor, and it is probable that
the vase has a truer form for being turned on a wheel. But cabinets
have been made wholly by hand and vases turned without the potter’s
wheel. There are people who treasure works made wholly by hand above
the machine-aided work, however artistic. The theatre once did without
the adventitious aids it now employs. Once it was merely a platform set
in the sunlight, revealed to the sight of an assembled audience. Many
believe that the theatre of the future will be something of that sort,
welcoming, however, in addition to or instead of the sun, the more
constantly available, controllable and subtly colorable electric light.
But the Greeks had their machines for the revelation of gods, and
there is something about _periaktoi_, or revolving pieces of scenery.
It is with the machines that the theatre has concerned itself most of
all. Every developed stage has employed an amount of mechanism for
the producing of those “effects” which I mentioned in the preceding
chapter; and it may be that the theatre always will,--one wing of the
theatre, the Right, doubtless.
Of late years, with the advent of the naturalistic or realistic type
of drama, the stage has sought more and more illusion, not only in
its imitations of the movements and acts of men and women but in its
representation of their surroundings. It has tried to become a more
perfect machine,--more nearly an _instrument of precision_. It may
be significant to observe that, although masterpieces of drama gave
impetus to the development of the illusion stage,--outstandingly the
plays of Ibsen,--the illusion stage has brought forth no masterpieces.
In this country, it may be held responsible for the buzz-saw,
train-wreck, or horse-race type of melodrama, a type now happily
removed from the theatre by the moving picture with its still higher
degree of visual veracity. In Germany, the stage as machine has been
developed to an extraordinary degree, and, for the most part, never
debauched by exhibitions of effects for their own sake, as in our
sensational melodrama of half a generation ago. I shall discuss a
number of these German inventions in a later chapter, but for the
present propose to consider the stage as a machine adapted to average
demands.
There are two primary demands--that the machine shall be able to
do the work demanded of it efficiently and with a minimum danger
of breakdown, and that the machine be subject to control. The work
of the stage-machine is, of course, the handling of scenery, the
illusion-stuff of the present-day stage. This scenery is of two types:
pieces that are suspended from ropes (hanging pieces), and pieces that
stand on the floor (set pieces). For exterior scenes, the first type
includes drops, “borders” representing foliage, leg-drops representing
trees, pillars, arches, etc., or sections of wall, house-front, or
other flat architectural units, large enough to warrant hanging
overhead when out of use, so as to save floor space; and--for interior
scenes--ceilings and back walls. The second type includes, for exterior
scenes, any low-standing units, such as walls, hedges, fences, tree
trunks, “wings” or set-houses; and for interior scenes, the side-walls
of the room and very often part or the whole of the back wall.
For the manipulation of hanging scenery, the most important piece of
stage machinery is the grid-iron. This is a slatted platform of steel
or iron joists, built a few feet below the roof of the stage, just
enough below to allow head-room for a man standing on it. Along the
center of the grid-iron, on a line at a right angle to the foot-lights,
is set a row of blocks and sheaves of a special type, manufactured
for stage use. Equidistant right and left of this center row by half
the width of the stage proper (the part of the stage within the
proscenium) are other rows. Over these sheaves, ropes are passed. Thus,
hanging over the stage parallel to the back wall, in sets of three,
are lines to which scenery may be attached. The other ends of the
lines in each set are brought together at one side or the other of the
stage, so that the three ropes of each set may be operated as one. On
the side to which the lines are led is located the pin-rail, either
on a fly-gallery or at the floor level. Of each set of three, the
line hanging nearest the side from which the lines are operated--the
pin-rail side--is known as the short line, the line most remote from it
is known as the long line, and the other as the center line. On very
large stages, with an opening of forty feet or more, four lines to each
set are advisable, not only to bear the greater weight of the larger
pieces of scenery required, but also to secure a better trim, or level
hang of the scenery.
These lines, needless to say, should be of the best hemp rope, of
a weight adjusted to the size of the stage. Half-inch line is the
lightest it is wise to use. This rope should be subjected to periodical
inspection, to forestall breaking and the falling of scenery, with
consequent damage to the scenery, the play, or the actors.
On some grid-irons, the blocks are screwed to the under side of the
grid. This is unsafe, as they have been known to tear loose. They
should ride the joists, the lines dropping between each two. At least
twenty-five sets of lines should be provided.
When a set of lines is not weighted with scenery, sandbags are tied to
the loose ends, so that they may be lowered to the floor when needed.
Frequently a piece of scenery will be found too heavy for one or two
men to raise from the floor. In such cases, counterweights in the
form of large sand-bags are hung on the part of the lines between the
grid-iron and the pin-rail.
The primary purpose of hanging scenery in this fashion is to be able to
haul it out of sight in the upper part of the stage when it is not in
use. Hence large overhead space is necessary. This system also makes
possible the use of unstiffened scenic units, such as drop curtains and
borders, which, literally, have no legs to stand on.
In large stages the lines are controlled from a pin-rail on a gallery,
built out from one of the side walls of the stage. In smaller stages
the pin-rail may be built against one of the side walls on the floor
level. This has various advantages--ease of access the foremost, and
the saving of a stage-hand, who would otherwise have to remain on the
fly-gallery, besides. The advantages to be claimed for the fly-gallery
are that its use leaves the stage floor clear of ropes, leaves the side
wall clear for the stacking of scenery, and is a valuable vantage point
from which to cast light upon the stage.
The stage of the Century Theatre is equipped with a counterweight
system that practically eliminates hand-power in the raising and
lowering of hanging scenery. To each set of lines is attached a metal
case, or container, which rides up the stage wall between tracks. At
the top of the stage, above each container, there is a magazine filled
with buckshot. By an ingenious mechanism, when a piece of scenery
hanging in the loft is to be lowered to the floor level, a quantity of
the shot in the container is allowed to flow out, so that the scenery
outweighs the counterweight and descends. Its descent can be stopped
at any point by brakes on the lines. When it is to be raised, shot
from the magazine above is allowed to flow into the container until
the counterweight outweighs the scenery, and the scenery ascends. The
shot that flows to the bottom of the chute is conveyed by an endless
chain-and-bucket conveyer to the magazines at the top. Such a system
is only warranted on stages of opera-house proportions. There are
also systems for controlling the lines by motors; but on the stage of
average size, man-power is the safest and most dependable.
Scenery that stands on the floor requires little by way of machinery.
Some of it is self-supporting, as are the “wings,”--folding,
screen-like pieces used to mask the sides of the stage. All set scenery
is “framed,” so that it stands rigid enough when braced from the back.
Part of the equipment of every stage is a supply of stage-braces
for the support of such scenery. These are made of hardwood, can be
extended to any desired length, have a prong at the top which hooks
into a screw-eye fastened to the scenery, and a foot-iron at the bottom
which can he fastened to the stage floor by means of a stage screw
or “peg.” The use of these pegs demands a soft-wood stage floor into
which they will bite easily. Good stage braces can be obtained from any
reliable dealer in stage equipment.
The main curtain of the theatre, if it raises and lowers, is often
operated from the fly-gallery. It is better, however, to have it
operated from the stage level, on the same side of the stage as the
fly-gallery or the pin-rail. The draw type of curtain is always handled
from the stage floor. “Travelers” for these curtains can be more
cheaply bought than made, and are kept in stock by any stage-rigging
firm.
It is well to have the stage flooring built in lateral sections resting
on joists that run the width of the stage. When traps are needed in the
floor, they can then be cut without difficulty at any point.
The lighting equipment of the stage, by far the most important of its
mechanical attributes, I shall describe later, but I shall treat here
of one device, which is structural. It is one of the German inventions
for the perfection of illusion to which I have referred, and the only
one I recommend to little theatres, far and wide. I recommend it
because of the added beauty it can bring into the playhouse, rather
than because of its merit as a part of the perfect machine. This is the
Kuppel-horizont, or sky-dome.
The sky-dome approximates in shape a quarter-sphere, much like the
shells commonly placed behind out-door band stands. The base line
begins far enough toward the front of the stage and behind the
proscenium to be masked from the opposite side of the auditorium, and
sweeps around the back of the stage. The back and sides of the dome
rise vertically for some distance and then arch at the top toward the
front of the stage. The higher the dome is, the less the canopy need
overhang the front of the stage; and the less it overhangs, the more
grid-iron space is available for hanging scenery. But it will be seen
at once that the more dome there is to take the place of the usual
hanging stuff, the fewer of the usual tawdry borders are needed.
The late Wallace Sabine, in a series of experiments conducted with a
model built at Harvard University by Theodore C. Browne and the present
writer, concluded that the quarter-sphere was disadvantageous to the
acoustics of the stage and was not required in order to obtain the
best results in lighting. He recommended a form flatter at the back and
with a sharper curvature at the sides and top.
Three modifications of this device have been installed in little
theatres in America--one at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, one
at the Beechwood Theatre in Scarborough, and one at the Arts and Crafts
Theatre in Detroit. The Neighborhood Playhouse “dome” is really little
more than a cyclorama built in plaster. It has no canopy overhead, and
the ends extend toward the front of the stage only a little distance.
The one at the Beechwood Theatre is similarly simplified. But even this
plaster cyclorama is a great improvement over the canvas cyclorama in
its stability, freedom from wrinkles, and better diffusion of light.
At the Arts and Crafts Theatre, the ends of the dome do not curve
toward the front of the stage at all, but the top arches, forming a
canopy over the back part of the stage. The only true dome in this
country was installed by Samuel J. Hume at the Madison Theatre in
Detroit, now used as a moving-picture playhouse.
With such a dome, a great deal of the litter of painted scenery can
be done away with. A background of light takes the place of the usual
painted back-drop, and much of the scenery usually set at the sides
or hung overhead, merely to keep the eye from penetrating to the
back-regions of the stage, is no longer needed.
Added to the stage at the time of construction, the dome costs little
more than the price of its materials. The initial cost will be saved
many times over in the decreased cost of scenery. The very least that
should be done, if the budget does not allow for the construction
of an entire dome, is to plaster the back wall of the stage. This,
more than counterweights, traps, revolving stages, and all the other
paraphernalia of advanced construction, will extend the possibilities
of the stage machine, not only for the uses of illusion but for the
service of the imagination.
A familiar feature of most theatres in which productions are made is
the paint-bridge and paint-frame at the back of the stage. Here the
scenery to be painted, mounted on the frame, is raised and lowered
before the bridge. To my mind, this is a waste of space and money.
Primarily it is a waste of space at the back of the stage. If the dome
is used it is quite out of the question. But, strongest argument of
all, it is not needed. If the scenery must be painted in the theatre,
it can be painted lying flat on the floor. The saving on this item may
well be enough to cover the cost of the sky-dome.
[Illustration: Auditorium of the Arts and Crafts Theatre, Detroit.
This theatre is of particular interest in connection with the movement
to build community houses as war memorials. It shows how a playhouse
may be fitted informally and beautifully into a building not designed
primarily for dramatic purposes.]
[Illustration: Auditorium of the theatre at the Carnegie Institute
of Technology, Pittsburgh. This is an admirable example of dignified
decoration, uniform floor slope, and generously spaced seats; but the
auditorium is too wide to secure adequate sight-lines from all seats.
See plan on page 28.]
CHAPTER V.
STAGE LIGHTING
The most vital part of the stage machine is yet to be touched upon,
the only part in which any mystery is involved. After all, most of our
machinery of the theatre is of the simplest type,--ropes and pulleys
and simple bracing. In a double sense, the electrical equipment is
approached with more awe. While most people know a little about the
simpler laws of mechanics, electricity, guarded by an element of
danger, is a matter too recondite to be brought into the fold of
everyday information out of mere curiosity, or to be reasoned out as
the childish working of a pulley can be figured out by common sense;
it has to be studied and learned. And besides being outside common
matter-of-fact, light is mystery itself, unplumbed nature, a fraction
of the inscrutable life of the world led by strings to the stage.
If the little playhouse is without any mechanical convenience, if its
stage is cramped and mean, it can still achieve visual beauty through
light. This force brings into the playhouse the most vibrant, subtle
and affecting gift of the physical world, barring only the human
presence.
Ultimately it will be seen that a forthright attempt to imitate nature
on the stage can result only in failure; the painted or modeled
semblances of rocks, trees, grass or distant prospects are in the long
run seen to be what they are not what they pretend to be. Similarly,
close as the light of the stage can be brought to resemble the light
of the outer world, it will still be short of complete fidelity to
its original. But it is, in itself, a force of beauty, an authentic
transplanting of the revealer of nature’s divers beauties, so that, if
it fails to achieve what the manipulator tries to make it do, it may
achieve something possibly more beautiful.
More and more can this be true in the theatre, as the artist comes to
regard light as a pure medium, as he learns more of its profound effect
on human emotion, even on the working of the body’s organs, and as
he becomes familiar with the thousand subtle ways in which the earth
and its atmosphere modify the light sent by the sun, reflecting and
refracting it, stealing certain colors from its whiteness and leaving
others, resolving it prismatically by mists and clouds and the swirls
of atmosphere. These are a few of the ways in which nature plays the
artist with light. They point to unlimited lessons in technique that
the theatre artist in light has yet to learn.
The little theatre, or any theatre for that matter, cannot go wrong
by beginning at the beginning. Let it revalue the customary machinery
for stage lighting, and the results achieved by its use. Later I shall
describe this customary equipment, for it has its great uses, and much
of the criticism that I shall apply to it applies perhaps with greater
justice to the manner in which it is used. But, implicit in the system
itself, is a criticism of its purpose to reproduce the effects of
nature under conditions that in nowise resemble those of nature, or its
laying over a convention (artistic at its best, futilely anachronistic
at its worst) not another convention, but a lantern of Diogenes,
showing up shams.
Go back to the beginning. One candle rightly used, as in Robert Edmond
Jones’ lighting of the den scene in _Redemption_, is both drama and
beauty. Imagine Wallace Stevens’ _Carlos Among the Candles_ shown upon
the stage by the candle light of the strange room-world which is the
play’s universe. Here is a complete wedding of drama and the mobile
beauty of light itself, a light we can readily achieve. From these
candles to the sun of Shakespeare’s comedies, the storms of his _Lear_
or the mists and fogs of _The Tempest_ is a far cry. He begged the
question, in extraordinary verse, and acted the words and emotions of
his plays in the plain light of day, which is bound to be beautiful,
even when it is not illusive of the moon.
Right here lies the crux of the problem of installing lights in
the little theatre. A dual approach is required, as in any art:
the creator’s vision of what he wishes to do, and the technician’s
knowledge of how to go about it. The greater responsibility rests
on the first function, for we must settle whether we are to try to
reproduce nature or attain a correlative beauty. To me the beauty of a
stage sunset has rarely been the beauty of a real sunset; it has been
the beauty of rosy light. If anything, the unreality of the sunset has
stood in the way of my appreciation of the reality of red. The beauty
of red was accidental, and not the artist’s intention. It could not
have been avoided, for it is germane to sunset, but the fact remains
that the artist achieved something other than he set out to achieve. It
would have been better to go in for red and attain it than to go in for
sunset and attain red. If blue light intimates the moon, well and good.
It is beautiful itself, and does not awaken marvel at the cleverness
with which we have contrived an effect. Whereas a nicely operated
moonrise, or a jiggling procession of stereoptican clouds leaves us
gaping while the tragedy hobbles, unattended, to it close.
When the theatre forsook the sunlight, it faced the question of light
solely as illumination. By various means,--torches and tapers, gas,
“limes” and electricity,--it has made its art visible indoors and
at night. The introduction of electric light into the theatre has
made possible an illumination so dependable and controllable that of
late years attention has been turned to other phases of the lighting
problem. Thanks must be given for most of the advance thus far to the
effort of the illusion-theatre to imitate the light of nature. My
belief is that the greater advance lies ahead, in the study of light on
the stage as an art medium _per se_.
Two important things the stage worker of the modern theatre
contributed, through his rough approximations of realistic effect, two
things that will serve, whatever our aim in lighting. He saw that the
light at some seasons, in some weathers, and at some times of day,
is less bright than at others, and that it fades at dusk. He devised
means, therefore, of varying its intensity. Second, he perceived
that at sunset light is one color, at noon another, and by full moon
another. He gave us dyes and color screens, and with them and his
dimmers brought to the stage the important element of control.
Other advances, through other agencies in the theatre, tend to
subtilize the function of light, carrying it beyond primary
illumination. Second, perhaps, comes the scene designer, who demands
that the light, in addition to illuminating the players and stating the
time of day or year, shall contribute values to his design as picture.
It shall be made to cast shadows where dark masses are wanted in his
composition. It shall highlight other features of the scene; it shall
reinforce the painter’s work with color; it shall give plasticity to
the builder’s work with its highlight and shadow.
Next, the dramatist and producer make their demands--the light
shall reinforce the mood and meanings of the play. By its intensity
or dimness, it gives “atmosphere”; by its color it has a direct
psychological and physiological effect on the spectator, sensitizing
him to values in the play he might not perceive were it enacted in
light of another sort. Dramatist, director and designer, in the
lighting of a play, if nowhere else, should be so much at one that it
is easy to understand Gordon Craig’s wish that one man should combine
the functions of all three.
Light, in the theatre, then: (1) illuminates the stage and actors;
(2) states hour, season, and weather, through suggestion of the light
effects in nature; (3) helps paint the scene (stage picture) by
manipulation of masses of light and shadow and by heightening color
values; (4) lends relief to the actors and to the plastic elements of
the scene; and (5) helps act the play, by symbolizing its meanings and
reinforcing its psychology.
To achieve these five functions of stage light, five different kinds
or sources of light are not, of course, needed. One light may combine
several, or all, of these functions. In Joseph Urban’s lighting and
setting of the last act of _Tristan and Isolde_ some years ago at the
Boston Opera House, a beam of late afternoon sunlight struck across the
stage to the figure of Tristan lying beneath a great oak tree. Slowly,
as the day waned, the sun patch crept from the figure, until, at his
death, it had left him in cool shadow. Thus, a light that illuminated,
that told the time of day, that gave the figure of the singer and the
bole of the great tree high relief by striking from only one side, also
aided symbolically and psychologically in the interpretation of the
drama. Thus to make light function in many ways is to use it with a
sense of its ductility and subtlety as a medium of theatre art. In it
we have the only single agency in the theatre that can work with all
the other agencies, binding them together--that can reveal with the
dramatist, paint with the designer, and act with the actors.
The machinery by which this medium is brought to the stage and through
which its wonders are wrought commands a deep respect. Tradition
has already laid its heavy hand here, and innovation in lighting
equipment moves slowly. It is almost wholly within the last five years
in the United States that lighting units of marked novelty have been
introduced.
Of first importance is the machinery of control, the switchboard and
dimmers. The customary place for the board in American theatres is at
one side of the proscenium arch, either on the stage floor level, or
on a perch raised some nine or ten feet above the stage floor. The
manifest disadvantage of this location is that the operator cannot
see the whole of the stage, and must depend for his cues upon a stage
manager. It has, therefore, become the practice in many European
theatres to place the operator in a pit directly in front of the
stage, shielded from the auditorium and facing the actors. From here
he can watch the action and see the effects of his lights constantly.
Telephone connections with lamp operators at the back of the stage
enable him to keep them under his control.
The construction of the board and mounting of the switches are strictly
prescribed by boards of fire underwriters in various cities, and need
not be detailed here. The important consideration at this point is
that, so far as possible, each light unit on the stage shall be subject
to central control from a vantage point from which the stage can be
seen; that each unit shall be subject to _separate_ control; that
groups of like units, classed by location or color, shall be subject to
group control, apart from other groups; and that the stage light, as a
whole, shall be controllable apart from the house lights.
That is, assuming, for purposes of illustration, the arrangement of
lights common to most theatres, the white lights of the first border
shall be controlled by a switch apart from that controlling the white
lights of the second border or the third or the fourth. So, likewise,
for each color circuit of each border, separately. Then there should
be a white border main switch, controlling the white lights of all the
borders, and a blue border main, etc. Above these, there should be a
border main switch controlling all the border lights simultaneously.
And thus with each division of the stage lights. Over all, one stage
main switch should control all the lights of the stage. The auditorium
lights, with their own switches, should be controlled from the same
board as the stage lights.
The outstanding item of expense in building a good switchboard is the
cost of dimmers, the resistance devices by which the intensity of the
light is controlled. They vary in capacity with their wattage and
type. But the dimmers, more than any other part of the control system,
contribute to the flexibility of the machine. In a modern theatre they
are indispensable.
So far as possible, there should be a dimmer for each switch on the
board, controlling each light unit separately. With “master” levers,
related light units can be ganged and controlled simultaneously. When
only a limited number of dimmers can be afforded, it is possible so to
construct the switchboard that circuits to be dimmed can be “shunted”
through the dimmers, while circuits that need not be dimmed remain
on constant. A very ingenious board of this type was designed by Mr.
Bassett Jones for the Artists’ Guild Theatre in St. Louis. This board
has eight dimmers which can be used for any eight light units on the
stage, giving it a far greater flexibility than it would have if only
a particular eight could be dimmed. It is, however, rather complicated,
with its dual system of constant and dimmer plugs and connectors, so
that only great familiarity with it makes it quick in action.
In addition to the switchboard type of dimmer, there are also smaller
dimmers made for use with nitrogen lamp spots and floods. Where
these are used I believe they should be set by the main switchboard,
rather than on the lamp itself. Attached to the lamp they require an
additional operator and break up the centralization of control.
The actual stage lights fall into two classes--stationary and movable.
The stationary or fixed equipment has remained, on the whole, highly
conventional. It consists, primarily, of the footlights, a trough of
lights set along the floor at the front edge of the stage, throwing
light upward upon the actors and the scene, and the border lights,
hanging troughs, adjustable in height, throwing their light downward.
The first of these border lights, often known as the concert border,
hangs immediately behind the curtain or proscenium drapery, and the
others are hung at intervals of seven feet from center to center.
The footlights and borders are usually wired in three circuits, each
circuit being filled with lamps of a different color, customarily
white, red or amber, and blue.
Of late, these customary units have been put on trial and found
wanting. They serve principally, and almost exclusively, the first
function of stage light--illumination--and are found, on the modern
stage, not to serve it well. Footlights, especially, have come under
the ban, though the campaign against them has been waged a little
indiscriminately. When footlights alone are used in a realistic scene,
they are bad. If the light from the floor dominates, the under surfaces
of the face--chin, nose-tip, eyelids--are unnaturally and disagreeably
accentuated. If the light from below and above is balanced, the result,
though more natural, is perhaps as bad, for the lighting is flat, and
there is no relief in the features or figures of the players. For
plays and scenes of a heroic or fantastic sort, treated decoratively,
rather than literally, lighting entirely from above gives interesting
and picturesque results. It shadows the features heavily, and lends a
sculptured, massive quality to the face. More and more, this overhead
lighting has come to be used, and with some producers has been made a
fetish.
The very quality that makes this sort of lighting interesting in scenes
of a certain kind exhibits its strongest disadvantage in naturalistic
lighting. In the average room, during the daytime, light pours in
through windows, striking faces at face level. The light comes mostly
from one side of the room, or if there are windows on more than one
side, and the light comes in several directions, it comes in varying
degrees. The sun does not shine in two directions at once. That is
to say, though light may come from more than one direction, and be
reflected multitudinously by walls and ceiling and, in less degree, the
floor, the balance of intensity is always in favor of one direction.
And this direction is not up or down, but in a line approaching a right
angle to the erect figure.
Something of the same sort is usually true out-of-doors. Only at noon
do we have literally overhead lighting. Even then, the beam of light
is so broad as to envelop the figure on all sides, and is so variously
reflected by the dome of the sky, by trees, rocks, water, houses, that
there is, in addition to the direct downward light, a considerable
“general” diffused illumination. At most hours of the day, the rays of
the sun fall upon the earth and its people at a long angle. The factor
that gives relief and prevents a dull flatness in the light of nature
is the dominance of east over west in the morning and of west over
east in the afternoon. Night illumination indoors, though usually from
fixtures above head-level, is reflected by all the walls of the room
and by all the objects in it.
A soft, diffused face-level lighting is thus warranted in almost
all circumstances. The hard glare of foots and borders, used
unrestrictedly, does not supply this need most happily. Used
moderately, footlights have a distinct function, until better means of
moderating the crude shadows cast from above shall have been devised.
An effort to throw light upon the stage at an angle less perpendicular
than that of footlight and border has been made at the Little Theatre
in New York. Here, certain sections of the ceiling panelling can be
lowered and light thrown upon the stage by diffused spot lamps at an
angle of 45°. In Mr. Belasco’s theatre, lights have been installed
in the face of the balcony, achieving the same result even more
satisfactorily. I believe that, in good time, beautifully designed
lighting units will be frankly set or hung in the auditorium of the
theatre.
The footlight equipment of most theatres is, as it has long been,
unmodified, consisting merely of rows of incandescent lamps of
low standard (usually forty watts). The border lights have seen
more innovation during the past few years, especially the first (or
concert) border, most used in lighting interior scenes. Originally,
these border lights were intended to light not only the stage, but
also the hanging strips of canvas (known as borders) formerly used
to suggest a ceiling in interior scenes, and still used to represent
foliage and to misrepresent the blue sky in exterior scenes. With the
use of flat ceilings for interiors comes a demand for a light that
illuminates the scene rather than the ceiling. This is best supplied
by the X-Ray border, made up of a smaller number of lamps than the old
border but of higher standard, each lamp being 150 or 250 watts. Each
lamp is set in a separate compartment, separated from its neighbor,
and each lamp is backed by an X-Ray reflector of mirrored glass with
whorled corrugations, diffusing the light evenly over a large area.
Each compartment may be fitted with a color screen of gelatine or dyed
glass. Often, too, spot lamps, large and small, are mounted on this
border to accentuate the light on certain areas of the stage.
The other borders, used mostly for exterior scenes, must serve to
flood stage and scene with light. The old type of border does not
serve adequately, even in the type of scene for which it was designed.
The use of sky borders has largely given way to the high cyclorama of
canvas or plaster, leaving the sky prospect open to the eye as far
as the sight line reaches. The overhead lighting must be powerful
enough to flood stage and sky with light. It is becoming more and more
common to reinforce the ordinary border-light equipment with hanging
thousand-watt lamps in specially constructed steel hoods. In the Arts
and Crafts Theatre, in Detroit, Sam Hume installed his entire overhead
equipment of such hanging lamps, and did away with the old border light
altogether. In the average theatre, however, these lamps are more in
the nature of movable lamps than of permanent equipment, and will be
further spoken of below.
[Illustration: The Neighborhood Playhouse, New York. This building
is one of the most satisfying examples of recent theatre design in
America, being free from overdecoration and admirably fitted to its
purpose technically. Harry Creighton Ingalls and F. B. Hoffman Jr.,
Associate Architects.]
[Illustration: Auditorium of the Artists’ Guild Theatre, St. Louis.
This little auditorium is made useful for both dramatic productions and
art exhibitions by means of an ingenious device for tilting the floor,
described on page 29. Above is the view toward the balcony, below the
view toward the stage. Laurence Ewald, Architect.]
The footlights and border lights, and, occasionally, vertical strips
inside the proscenium frame at the sides, constitute the whole of the
stage-lighting equipment that is more or less a part of the structure.
They “go with the building.” Everything else is movable and falls into
the second classification of lighting units. But, in the structure
of the stage, provision must be made for the use of such additional
lights. Outlets in the form of “stage pockets” are set at regular
intervals in the stage floor; into these pockets, spot and flood
lamps may be plugged. The pockets are set in the stage floor in two
lines running up and down stage, a short distance behind the proscenium
opening, at either side of it. There are usually from four to six such
pockets on each side of the stage. Sometimes there is one at the back
of the stage, and one or more in the fly-gallery. Occasionally, also,
in houses served by alternating current, there are pockets served by
a small house generator, supplying direct current for the use of arc
lamps. In some theatres, also, there are pockets connected with storage
batteries, intended to supply an emergency service or for use with
lighting units of a voltage other than the usual 110 volts. The pockets
must, of course, be carefully insulated, and covered with a hinged iron
lid set flush with the floor.
The movable lights are of two general types: flood lights, for general
diffused illumination, and lens lights, for concentrated, direct
“spotting.” Under the first heading may be classed all special lights
known, in stage parlance, as strips, floods, or bunches. Strips are
small troughs, fitted with from three to ten sockets, and are used
in lighting off-stage “backings,” set-pieces of scenery, and small
areas where a special accent of color or intensity is wanted. Bunches,
now largely obsolete, are hoods set on extension standards, fitted
with ten or twelve sockets each. These have been replaced by flood
lamps, burning 500 and 1,000-watt nitrogen-filled mazda bulbs. The
hoods of these flood lamps have diverging sides or are fitted with a
reflector behind the light, and have grooves at the front of the hood
for carrying color-frames. Formerly such lamps were equipped with arc
lights, but the nitrogen lamp has wholly displaced the arc in flood
lighting. Its advantages are that it does not require an attendant to
“feed” the light, that it can be dimmed, giving it range of intensity
to make up for decreased brilliance, and that it can be burned on
either direct or alternating current, without the annoying buzz of an
arc light burning alternating current.
Spot lamps are mounted in closed iron hoods, emitting light from only
one end through a lens. The hoods, like those of flood lamps, are set
on extension standards, and can be tipped up or down and turned from
side to side. Arc spots are still in general use, as the thousand-watt
lamp is not sufficiently brilliant for use on large stages or for long
throws. In little theatres, however, the thousand-watt spot is bright
enough and has all the advantages over the arc that apply to the newer
type of flood lamp. For such small stages, the principal consideration
always should be centralized control, and it cannot be got with the arc
light. As incandescent, gas-filled bulbs of still higher standard are
developed, the arc spot will cease to be used, even in large theatres.
There is also a small variant of the spot light, known as a “baby”
spotlight, burning a lamp of 150 or 250 watts. Used with care, this is
one of the most valuable stage lights we have for producing delicate
variations in light volume and color in particular areas of the stage.
These small lights may also be dimmed.
* * * * *
I have referred above to hanging hoods with thousand-watt lamps
for general illumination. Where these are not made a part of the
permanent lighting equipment of the theatre, they may be introduced
for special scenes and effects, being hung where desired, and massed
in such numbers and of such colors as needed. The hoods are equipped
with chains by which they may be hung upon pipe battens and tipped
as desired. They are plugged, like other movable lights, into floor
pockets or fly-gallery pockets.
The color of light on the stage is obtained in three ways. Where lamps
of low standard (twenty-five or forty watts) are used, as in the foots
or borders, they may be coated with dyes, put up for the purpose, made
with a collodion base. The burning lamp is dipped into the liquid and
left alight until the dye coat has thoroughly dried and hardened.
Bulbs of high standard, however, cannot be dyed, as the dye does not
stand up under the intense heat generated by a lamp of one hundred or
more watts. As a matter of fact, few of the commercial dyes are wholly
satisfactory, even with smaller bulbs. The blues especially deteriorate
under heat, either fading or cracking, or burning to a purple or black.
The rays of larger lamps, burned either in flood or spotlight hoods,
are colored with gelatine mediums, held before the light in frames
of proper size. The gelatine colors also fade under heat, and, being
very fragile, crack and tear, and must be frequently renewed. For
durability, the best color medium is a sheet of glass with the color
blown in. Unfortunately such glass is very costly, cannot be had in a
large range of colors, and is usually not as translucent as might be
wished.
Mr. Munroe Pevear of Boston has made interesting experiments with
mediums of dyed glass. He manufactures his own dyes, and claims for
them a much longer life than the commercial variety enjoys. His mediums
are highly translucent, and are, of course, far more durable than the
gelatine mediums. He makes them, however, in only the three primary
colors, for his development of color screens has been ancillary to
experiments of a larger intent--the development of a synthetic lighting
system.
The principle of his color system is simply the principle of the prism
inverted. The prism breaks white light up into its primaries. Mr.
Pevear unites the primaries to make white. By combining his red, green,
and blue light in varying degrees of each, he is able to obtain any
color in the spectrum. To pale out his lights to tints, he includes in
his border and footlight equipment a fourth circuit of white lights.
To my knowledge, only one theatre has been equipped by Mr. Pevear--the
Toy Theatre of Boston, now the Copley. But in the short-lived tenancy
of the house by the Toy Theatre Company there was never a whole-hearted
effort to test Mr. Pevear’s equipment. Experiments with synthetic
lighting have been conducted at various times and places by Sam Hume,
Norman Geddes, the present writer, and others. The results more than
reward the effort of such experiment, and I commend a study of its
possibilities to all workers in little theatres.
In addition to the typical theatrical lighting units, other units, not
designed primarily for theatrical use, are being adopted. Foremost
among these are the reflectors of the X-Ray type. These are made in a
number of sizes and shapes, but are of two types, the whorled reflector
and the parabolic reflector. The first type gives a diffused light and
the second a concentrated beam. The X-Ray flood lamps, manufactured
for lighting the exteriors of buildings and for illuminating night
construction jobs, are coming to be used on the stage. They can be
focused, have a higher efficiency than a lens light burning the same
number of watts, and produce a more pleasant spot than the sharply
defined light-area of the conventional spot light, projecting a
brilliant ray, most intense at the center and fading toward the edges
of the field. There are a number of firms manufacturing lights of this
type, and they are now generally used for lighting outdoor pageants.
They are quite as valuable in the indoor theatre as on the pageant
field.
I have used frequently, instead of baby spots of the regular type,
automobile windshield spots, burning a six-volt lamp. These cost
perhaps one-tenth as much as the regular type, and can be used on
a special circuit supplied with current either through a small
step-down transformer or from a storage battery, kept continually
charged by running current into it from a strip of carbon lights
wired in series-multiple. These windshield spots are usually equipped
with a swivel and trunnion mounting, so that they can be turned in
any direction, are focusable, and have a clamp by which they can
be fastened to pieces of scenery or upright pipe standards in the
proscenium entrance.
Besides a goodly number of well-distributed stage pockets into which
movable lamps may be plugged, there should be points of vantage from
which lights may be cast, perches and bridges elevated above the level
of the stage. Most useful is a bridge across the stage, just inside
and above the proscenium. From this bridge, special flood and spot
lamps may be manipulated. Often perches are built out from the wall
at either side of the proscenium from which spots may be thrown down
to the stage. Occasionally these are movable structures with several
levels and can be wheeled to various points off stage. The fly-gallery,
also, is used for spot lighting. When a false proscenium is used, the
overhead bridge and side perches are sometimes built into the structure.
In planning the lighting equipment for a small stage, all thought of
the usual theatre installation can be set aside. Border lights of the
old type are not useful enough to warrant the expenditure of the money
they cost. Footlights, too, though useful when no better means of front
lighting can be devised, can well be replaced by face-level lights
from the auditorium, concealed by wall traps or by the balcony rail,
or hidden in decorative coverings suspended, chandelier-like, from the
ceiling. The essentials for a flexible, adaptable lighting system are
centralization and delicacy of control, numerous and well-situated
current outlets, and as wide a variety as possible of movable lamps for
flooding and spotting. There should be enough circuits to allow the
use of a three- or four-color system, along the lines of the synthetic
system of Mr. Pevear, described above. Along with this there must be
facilities for throwing light from above the stage from bridges and
movable platforms. The only permanently installed piece of lighting
equipment that is absolutely necessary is the X-Ray border at the front
of the stage for the lighting of interior scenes.
With a carefully planned switchboard and dimmer-bank, and numerous
pockets or current outlets, for the initial equipment, there is
hardly any limit to the development of the little theatre’s lighting
facilities, for if it must begin with only a few lighting units, it
can acquire more from time to time, and with each acquisition build up
its means of achieving beauty. And in this direction the most vital
contributions to the craft of the theatre are yet to be made.
[Illustration: Figure 9--The permanent “scene” of the _Théâtre du
Vieux Colombier_. See page 74. (From _Album du Vieux Colombier_ by
Fauconnet.)]
CHAPTER VI.
STAGE MACHINERY AND SETTINGS
I have made mention earlier of the ingenuity so often demanded of
the little theatre stage director. The limitations of his stage
often compel him to an inventiveness different only in scale from
that displayed by the great German technicians of the theatre. No
Harvard student who ever shifted scenery for the Dramatic Club in
Brattle Hall can outgrow his enthusiasm for the feats achieved on
that absurd stage. At the Artists’ Guild in St. Louis, it gave us
unbounded glee to set the massive chamber of _The Queen’s Enemies_ on
the cramped stage there. To be confronted with deficiencies of one
sort or another--mechanical or fiscal--which must be overcome, is
unquestionably a spur to ambition. To struggle with material barriers,
space, time, physical means, and accomplish results in spite of them;
to wring beauty out of meagre cheesecloth and tinsel when there is no
money for silk and gold galloon, is a victory of sorts; and without the
fighting and winning of such battles as these, half our little theatres
might never have been, and much of their best work might not have been
done.[5] Practically all modern stage machinery has been devised to
heighten effects of nature, and therein it differs from the machinery
of the theatre of the greatest eras, which was devised to produce
effects _beyond_ nature. The Greeks and Elizabethans left Nature
strictly to herself, but had a fairly elaborate mechanical system by
which they exhibited gods, demons, ghosts, and visions.
[5] NOTE.--I wish to qualify fundamentally my admiration for the
ingenuity of the mechanical features of the modern stage. In fact,
I do not believe they can advance the theatre one jot. They are
marvelously ingenious in denying the limitations of the stage and in
part triumphing over them. Yet I have a persistent feeling that the
recognition of the limitations and the acceptance of them is more
fundamental in the development of an art or craft than the denial of
them and the triumphing over them. Even such a triumph has its ultimate
boundaries, and when they have been reached, there is little to do but
acknowledge defeat. When matter has been twisted and beaten into the
cunningest perversions of its first form, the craftsman is still not
satisfied; for his spirit can soar to further reaches where none of the
elements can follow. This is truer of the theatre artist, perhaps, than
of any other, save the musician (who is, after all, a theatre artist).
The theatre has been, these many centuries, the theatre _because_ of
the limitations that encompass it, not in spite of them. Likewise is
the church (as a field of art) limited, and it is by merit of its
limitations that the church has been great. Utter _churchliness_ owes
little to the style of architecture of any specific church edifice.
And the transcendent theatre art of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin or
of the Art Theatre in Moscow does not hang upon the skill with which
the one has used a revolving stage or with which the other has devised
its scenery. The German theatres have to a remarkable degree increased
natural illusion in scenery and lighting; but in spite of that there
is about as much bad theatre art in Germany as good. Where greatness
is found, where the artist has most truly realized the function of the
theatre, it will be seen that his spirit has transcended utterly the
possibilities of his physical stage; and, like as not, he has made no
effort to strain the capacities of his medium, but has worked utterly
within them. One of the remarkable facts about the stage technique of
Robert Edmond Jones is that he demands nothing impossible to achieve.
His designs are easy to execute, and his scenery easy to handle.
Here, again, is the dilemma which we faced in the discussion of the
approach to the stage lighting problem. There are limits to our
ability to reproduce on the stage the light effects of nature. But
there are practically no limits to the theatrical expressiveness of
light, regarded as a medium, _per se_. There are limits beyond which
mechanical skill or inventive genius cannot alter the obdurate confines
of the physical stage. But there are no heights to which a human
spirit, set in public upon a platform, however narrow and close-walled,
cannot rise. In view of this great spiritual fact, I would solemnly
warn any little theatre or community house that has money to spend
for modernity, not to spend it on the kind of advance stage machinery
discussed in this chapter, but to spend it on artists.
One of the first mechanical improvements of our present-day stage was
the _drehbühne_, or revolving stage, invented by Herr Lautenschlager.
Its purpose is to move, without inordinate intermissions between acts,
scenery far heavier than men can handle. The cult for realism demanded
a greater plasticity in scenery, and consequent increase in mass
and structural complexity. The revolving stage is a great turntable
on which as many as six or seven scenes can be set at one time, and
revealed successively to an audience by revolving the table. The
scenery for the entire play is set up on the day of the performance,
and no shifting of scenes need be done during the progress of the play.
The designing of scenery to fit the revolving stage, developed to its
highest point by Reinhardt, is so little understood in this country
that our few revolving stages are seldom used. The Century Theatre
stage in New York has a turntable, but I do not know of any instance
in which the scenery for an entire performance was set upon it. Mr.
Winthrop Ames had a revolving stage installed in his Little Theatre
in New York; but, as this stage is only thirty-five feet in diameter,
he found it inadequate for the setting of many of the scenes. Mr.
Harry Bishop, in building the Liberty and Fulton Theatres in Oakland,
California, constructed revolving stages of adequate size, but evaded
the problem of devising scenery especially for them by installing a
revolving gridiron also, so that the old-fashioned sky and foliage
borders could ride around the stage with the set to which they belong.
A little labor is saved in shifting scenes during performances, but I
doubt whether the saving equalizes the cost of installation of these
expensive devices.
A device of similar intent is the sliding stage, a great wagon the
size of the stage opening--or, rather, two or three of them--run, as
desired, before the proscenium opening, and capable of being pushed
off, after being used, into houses at either side of the stage or
lowered to the basement, there to be reset for another scene. This
device avoids some of the limitations of the revolving stage, in that
scenes need not be made to articulate closely as they must in order
to fit the circular bounds of the turntable; but it is tremendously
costly, and requires a great stage space.
There are other devices of like intent, such as the Asphalia stage,
built in transverse sections that can be raised and lowered on
hydraulic plungers, and Steele MacKaye’s elevator stage installed in
the old Madison Square Theatre, New York. None of these devices can
serve either the little theatre movement or the art of the theatre.
They are deadening, and divert effort from the true end of all
experiment and advance in the theatre. There is no doubt in my mind
that the sort of theatre that wants to be built is one in which the
machinery is reduced to a minimum,--efficient, controllable, but never
controlling the sort of work that must be done on the stage. In order
to have a modern, well-equipped stage, none of these innovations is
needed.
Of far more purpose, for the modern theatre, are certain tendencies
now manifest that appear at first glance like reversions to an older
type of stage. I refer chiefly to such a stage as that built by M.
Jacques Copeau for his _Théâtre du Vieux Colombier_, which, for two
seasons, was a strange intruder among the more literal stages of New
York. Indeed, save for the use M. Copeau made of modern mechanical
flexibility, his stage was a first cousin to the Elizabethan stage,
though his arrival at its particular form was not a case of atavism but
a philosophic realization of the true limitations of the theatre. His
stage consisted of three parts: a fore-stage, reached from the rear
stage, or from the main floor of the auditorium by steps upward, or
from doors high in the walls flanking the proscenium, whence steps led
down to the stage level; second, the stage proper; and third, an upper
stage, or balcony, engirdling the main stage. This balcony and the
space below it might be variously shut off from the main portion of the
stage, by tapestries, lattices, screens, or sections of scenery, flat
or pierced with windows or doors. Steps could be variously placed to
give access to the balcony.
Thus, without the use of strictly representative scenery, Copeau
had a stage which provided every facility for the presentation of
a play,--entrances, exits, and elevations. It gave scope to the
necessities of action and the agility of the actor. Such a construction
may be said to be as much scenic reform as reform in mechanics, except
that it largely renders the latter unnecessary.
I should not deem it part of the purpose of this paper to mention
scenic matters at all, were it not that, very often, a certain amount
of scenery, like a certain amount of lighting equipment, “goes with
the building”. The contract for the building and its rigging often
specifies also a “garden”, “plain chamber number one”, and “fancy
parlor number three”, or the like. Whether they are thrown in or not,
without extra charge, they should be courteously but firmly refused.
They stunt the timid imagination, and somehow, perhaps because they are
“real” scenery, never get thrown away.
For the scenic equipment of the stage I can do nothing better than
refer the reader to the permanent setting devised by Sam Hume for the
Detroit Arts and Crafts Theatre, of which he was for two seasons the
director. This setting consists of a certain number of interchangeable
units, flats, door pieces, window pieces, arches, and pylons.[6] Its
initial cost is low, far lower than that of several sets out of the
scene painter’s catalogue, and its usefulness infinitely greater. In
addition to this it has beauty.
[6] Mr. Sheldon Cheney in his _The Art Theatre_ has fully described and
illustrated this set, showing the multiple variations it is capable of.
It may be that the stage of the future is to be something quite
different than that we now have. As a theatre of truth supplants the
theatre of illusion, it may be found that the stage of to-day does not
answer at all. The theatre is undoubtedly in a transitional period and
artists are striving for new forms and new methods of presentation.
What directions these tendencies may take it is not the purpose of
this paper to forecast. Nor would it do to advise the adoption of a
type of stage not yet tested or of widespread use. Where there is
an experimental and creative attitude toward the theatre such types
will be evolved without any such rudimentary manual as this. Where a
manual is wanted, a stage should be built that can be used easily,
by everybody who wishes to use it, and which will give readily, in
return for effort spent upon it, a revenue of beauty. These pages will
achieve enough if they go a little way toward eliminating the usual
inept, difficult constructions that for these many years have cumbered
the way of folks, young and old, who wish to entertain themselves in
the theatre. More and more, they seek such entertainment at their own
hands. More and more, their efforts are being fostered by educational
bodies and organizations allied with the theatre. Such aid as this
pamphlet may bring them is hopefully dedicated to their service.
A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE
Martin Hammitzsch, _Der Moderne Theaterbau_ (Teil I). Berlin: E.
Wasmuth, 1905.
(This is perhaps the best book on the historical aspect, although only
the first volume has so far appeared.)
Edwin O. Sachs and E. A. Woodward, _Modern Opera Houses and Theatres_.
3 volumes. London: B. T. Batsford. 1896-98.
(This monumental and very useful series is generally considered the
standard descriptive and technical work, but is now somewhat out of
date.)
Edwin O. Sachs, _Stage Construction_. London: B. T. Batsford, 1898. (A
supplement to the above.)
Manfred Semper, _Theater_. Stuttgart: Arnold Bergsträsser, 1904.
(Handbuch der Architektur, Teil 4, Halb-Band 6, Heft 5.)
Roy C. Flickinger, _The Greek Theatre and Its Drama_. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1918.
(Contains the best summary of the conflicting views about the form of
the ancient theatre.)
Arthur Elam Haigh, _The Attic Theatre_. Third Edition, revised. Oxford:
The Clarendon Press, 1907.
(A standard work on the Greek Theatre.)
Brander Matthews, _A Study of the Drama_. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1910.
(Chapter III treats of the form of the theatre in relation to the forms
of drama.)
William Harvey Birkmire, _The Planning and Construction of American
Theatres_. New York: J. Wiley and Sons, 1896.
(Contains many plans and descriptions of the older American theatres.)
Max Littmann, _Das Münchner Künstlertheater_. Munich: I. Werner, 1908.
(A monograph describing one of the best small theatres in Europe, fully
illustrated with plans and photographs.)
Julius Bab, _Die Volksbühne in Berlin_. Berlin: E. Wasmuth, 1919.
(Describes and illustrates one of the best large buildings of the
“people’s theatre” type.)
Max Littmann, _Die Königlichen Hoftheater in Stuttgart_. Darmstadt: A.
Koch, 1912.
(Describes and illustrates an excellent example of the institutional or
“court” playhouse, in a building containing two complete theatres.)
TECHNICAL
Edward Bernard Kinsila, _Modern Theatre Construction_. New York: The
Moving Picture World, 1917.
Arthur S. Meloy, _Theatres and Motion Picture Houses_. New York:
Architects’ Supply and Publishing Company, 1916.
William Paul Gerhard, _Theatres: Their Safety from Fire and Panic,
Their Comfort and Healthfulness_. New York: Baker and Taylor, 1915.
Arthur Edwin Krews, _Play Production in America_. New York: Henry Holt
and Company, 1916.
(Contains brief but comprehensive chapters on stage machinery,
lighting, and other technical matters.)
_Bühnen Beleuchtung System Fortuny._
(Describes the important Fortuny lighting system.)
SCENERY
Edward Gordon Craig, _Towards a New Theatre: Forty Designs for Stage
Scenes_. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1913.
Jacques Rouché, _L’Art Théâtrale Moderne_. Paris: Edouard Cornély &
Cie., 1910.
Sheldon Cheney, _The Art Theatre_. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1917.
Hiram Kelly Moderwell, _The Theatre of To-Day_. New York: John Lane
Company, 1914.
_Theatre Arts Magazine._ 1916 to date.
(Contains several hundred illustrations of stage settings, stage plans,
etc.)
THEATRE ARTS MAGAZINE
_An Illustrated Quarterly_
Subscription price, $2.00 a year
BACK NUMBERS
containing articles, plays and sketches by
Gordon Craig
Lee Simonson
W. B. Yeats
Robert E. Jones
Gilbert Cannan
Stark Young
Walter Prichard Eaton
Susan Glaspell
Eugene O’Neill
Sam Hume
Arthur Hopkins
Rollo Peters
Zoe Atkins
John Drinkwater
PRICES--UNBOUND--POSTPAID
Volumes I-IV (complete), $20.00; Volume II, $3.00; Volume IV, $4.00.
(Volumes I and III sold only with complete sets). All issues except
those for February and May 1917, May 1918, October 1919, January and
October 1920, can still be had singly at 75 cents.
SPECIAL: Volume I-IV, bound, $25.00.
THEATRE ARTS MAGAZINE
Transcriber’s Notes:
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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