When the Young Vic re-opened its doors back in October, one of the great pleasures was, of course, the fact that – like Hackney Empire or the Royal Court after their refurbs – this was still recognisably the theatre we loved and remembered of old. I was shown it a few weeks before the opening, and blogged at the time that the “integrity of that original, wonderful circular space has been entirely maintained, as have parts of the original walls. Walking into the main house auditorium is like coming home in every sense: its recognisably the same space, right down to the new bench seating that are being installed that very much resemble the old ones.” The main changes, I wrote, were elsewhere: “look up, and extra layers have been added – there’s now a much higher technical gantry that could allow for scenery flying, and a vast docking door on the other side to the entrance that will allow scenery to be brought straight in from the workshop behind it, or even, should a director want to do so, use the door as a proscenium opening by the simple removal of the balcony seating that cuts through it and build a new stage out from there or behind it into the workshop itself.”
On Friday night, I saw the second new show there – The Enchanted Pig, which like the opening show, Tobias and the Angel, is a contemporary opera by Jonathan Dove, and once again breaks the mould for Christmas shows in London as the Young Vic have long excelled at. It’s a thrilling idea to trust a young audience to respond to a new piece of operatic storytelling, but they do. It confirms the age-old adage: if you build it, they will come. You need to expose audiences to something so they can discover they have a taste for it. And the Young Vic, having built up a reputation for the most interesting Christmas shows in town, has (re)built itself and they have come.
But as I also wrote back in September, “the biggest interventions are the additions of the flexible two new studio spaces, seating up to 180 and 80 respectively, and these are both stunning, versatile new venues.” They built these, but I didn’t come – at least not to the opening of the first show in the larger Maria studio, Dennis Kelly’s Love and Money, as I was away when it opened. But I finally caught it on Saturday, its closing day, and though its too late now to therefore comment on a play you can’t see anyway, I thought it was particularly poignant that, for a theatre named after one of British theatre’s most innovative theatre designers – the late Maria Bjornson – the first play in the high, handsome space should be designed so thrillingly by a young (and female) designer, Anna Fleischle. A tall curved wall, beside another flat one, produces a constant flow of different locales and hidden surprises: it’s a wonderful set for a wonderful play. Like Maria Bjornson, Fleischle is obviously a problem-solver when it comes to design. Though the flexible studio space that bears Bjornson’s name isn’t so much a problem as an opportunity for clever theatre makers, it’s superb to see it being inhabited so innovatively.
Later on Saturday, I also returned to another production whose young, female designer Katrina Lindsay also plays a pivotal role in: Rufus Norris’ re-imagined (and highly imaginative) staging of Cabaret offers a brilliant series of skewed, geometric shapes, endlessly reconfigured, to offer unique perspectives of the skewed, edgy world that the show itself inhabits. More than that, however, I returned to see it again away from the pressure of having to review it on the first night so I could simply enjoy it; and it was a great relief to feel that I could still stand by my original judgement (especially worrying since part of that is emblazoned on a large quotes panel outside the theatre!). One question, though: where did the Lyric centre aisle vanish to in between opening night and now? I remember quite clearly sitting on the centre aisle – but on Saturday, there was none!
Some theatres have the habit of removing seats to create a central aisle on opening night, especially when the view from the side aisles is not great, or all that complimentary to the design of the show. I think the same happens at the Comedy amongst others. It also helps with the nightmare protocol of which critics to give aisle seats to, and which should be demoted to having to sit in the middle of a row...
Given that Mark's colleague Nicholas de Jongh has ranted elsewhere about the evils (and alleged security risks!) of disappearing central aisles in our theatres - particularly with reference to the Mackintosh redevelopments - perhaps this practice can be put down to producers and theatre owners not daring to cross the all-important Evening Standard critic? And this theory obviously paid off for CABARET at the Lyric and DONKEY'S YEARS at the Comedy, who got lovely write-ups from said Standard critic, who was no doubt safely installed in a central aisle seat on opening night.
The seating plan of the Lyric confirms there is not normally a centre aisle at the theatre - http://www.nimaxtheatres.com/foolgallerypop.asp?img=lyric