What kind of theatres are there?
Arena / “Circle Theatre” / “Theatre-in-the-round
* Stage in center of circle or square with the audience around it
* Makes audience a part of the show / circle
* Advantages
- Any large room can be converted into a theatre
- Bare essentials of scenery but full use of lighting
* Disadvantages:
- Large scenery impossible (blocks sight lines)
- Actors tend to make ent/ext through the aisles in the house so they’re sometimes seen before
Proscenium
* Audience on one side, action enclosed by an arch or picture frame
* 4th wall – audience is removed from the action
* Allows elaborate scenery and effects to be created behind the opening
* Strong focus of the arch directs attention of the aud.
Thrust
* Audience on 2 or 3 sides of the action
* Allows more intimacy than a proscenium space, but allows some space to hide theatrical machinery and sets (more limits on tech than in proc.)
Created / Found
* Theatre set up in a space not ordinarily used for theatre
* Street theatre – can be used to bring theatre to neighborhoods that might not normally see it
- Oftentimes has a moral or political message
* Black Box – a formalized type of created/found space that depending on size can become any of the other types.
What type of theatre space came first?
1. Found
2. Arena and 3. Thrust
- Greek and Roman ie) The Colloseum
- Our knowledge of greek and roman theatre based on archeological digs and educated guessing
- Greek - a lot of times used natural hills to make seating / Romans started to build them (See handouts)
- When the roman empire fell, organized drama stopped for almost 500 years – still traveling troupes of performers.
- Stage machinery –
Eccyclema – wheeled platform that comes in through US doors… used to reveal royalty on a throne… or to bring out dead bodies of violence that happened off stage
Periaktoi – tall 3 sided forms that rotate on a central pivot – 3 scenes… easier changes
Machina – basket or platform lowered to the stage from the upper level
- Deus ex machina – gods descend from heaven
Medieval – platform stages / pageant wagons
- Church was against secular drama, but then they began using performances to dramatize the stories in the bible.
- Performances became too complex to be done in churches so they set up the stages/wagons
- Started developing more stage machinery and special effects, which were aptly called “secrets” – trap doors, rigging to move people and set pieces.
Renaissance – 4. Proscenium
* Theatre became part of the cultural reawakening throughout Europe
- Church pageants continued, but secular drama became popular and new theatres were built… based on historical descriptions of greek and roman theatres
* Changes – Theatre completely in side
- Forced perspective – Visual distortion technique that increases the apparent depth of an object
- Raked stage – Floor is higher in back (DS/US)
- Stock sets – used to create general locations that could be reused – Garden, woods, city, etc…
- Drops – Large expanse of cloth painted… led to the picture frame form of a stage
Elizabethan – about the same time in England – Thrust
- Shakespeare
- Multi-levels/balconies
- Orchestra pit – where commoners stood to watch
- Apron – flat extension of the stage floor
- Wings – to accommodate larger sets (increase number of borders)
Restoration Theatre –
* Interest in spectacle and visual effects - Started in Italy mid-1500s and spread throughout Europe
- Increase wings and borders to hide scenery
- Theatres built similarly to now… rake stages give way to flat ones.
- Box seats popular for social reasons (people near stage were actually lowest in social standing)
Modern Theatre –
* Late 1800s-20th century – more realistic and natural drama…. unity of style for all elements of a production
- Move away from stock sets
- Settings more environmental rather than just backgrounds
- As action moved US… box seats had bad view and started to be eliminated
* Anti-realistic movements – independent theatres and the “Little Theatre” movement
- Black boxes and found spaces
- Often relish in the intimacy between audience and actor (small spaces – libraries, barns, churches, parks, etc…)
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