Amidst the current fashion for shows in “found spaces”, I always wonder what’s the chicken and what’s the egg: did finding the space dictate the show that was created, or did wanting to do a particular show lead its creators on a search for an appropriate space to stage it in? Certainly one of my theatrical highlights of the year, when Neil Bartlett did The Pianist in a warehouse off a derelict railway sidings in Manchester that was duly full of Holocaust echoes, was partly created out of the amazing physical space that triggered those associations, as I reported here.
But I think I am even more impressed when theatre practitioners make a seemingly four-walled traditional space, with fixed seating, into something more mutable.
This has, of course, regularly happened over the years in the Royal Court’s main house, where the stage itself has become the auditorium, or the auditorium has been boarded over to become a promenade space. On another occasion, the stalls has become an extension of the stage into which the action was played out with the audience sitting in the circles only. Another of this year’s highlights, My Child, saw a completely new and unrecognisable space created within it, as the set became a kind of tube carriage installation.
And last night I saw something I never would have expected: Kneehigh actually made the Queen Elizabeth Hall seem not only hospitable but intrinsically theatrical, as well. With the second half of the auditorium screened off by giant white sail-like curtains, it was transformed for Rapunzel into a traverse theatre space, with extra seating on bale-like containers beside the stage and benches on the other side.
In the process, a fantastic intervention took place that has utterly changed this unlovely space. It proves, yet again, that the act of creating theatre doesn’t stop with what goes onto the stage, but extends to the stage itself and the relationship it has with the audience. It’s all up for grabs.
Now that's interesting. Unless I've gone very blind, they didn't have a big white sail/curtain on Wednesday's press night. The space was essentially traverse-plus-hay bales. I wonder if the curtain will become a permanent feature, or whether it'll twitch according to ticket sales. From what you say it sounds like they should keep it in and reduce capacity accordingly.
Dear Mark,
Another astonishing traverse conversion has taken place at the King's Head for the staging of Sylvia Freedman's Rough Music (until 13 January).
As I said in my review for another website:
"A masterstroke of staging by director Adams and his designer Norman Coates turns the usually cluttered King’s Head into a spacious traverse theatre, with banks of comfortable seating on either side of the playing area. While almost tripling the performing space this has also increased the seating capacity by twenty-five per cent, a flexible arrangement which opens up so many possibilities, and which Stephanie Sinclaire — the King’s Head’s dynamic chief executive and creative director — will surely be tempted to retain."
Sam's review for The Times said: "While John Adams’s production is also amiably untidy it has huge appeal. Staged in traverse, it is full of big, bold performances and energy."
Just between ourselves, Stephanie is very likely to keep this new arrangement.
Worth a look.
Best wishes for Christmas,
John T