Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2018 - 25

Michael Langham and Sir Laurence Olivier onstage in 1964. Photo by Peter Smith, courtesy of Stratford Festival
Archives.

the theatrical "illusion" and the relationship between audience and the stage. In
an article in Shakespeare Survey No 8,
Guthrie noted, "I suggest that theatrical
performance is a form of ritual, that the
audience is not asked to subscribe to an
illusion, but to participate in the ritual.
[...] The attraction for me of the 'open'
stage as opposed to the proscenium, is
primarily this: that it stressed the ritual
as opposed to the illusory quality of
performance" (130-131). The artificial
lighting of the enclosed Festival Theatre supports this heightened audience
awareness of its surroundings because

light bleeds from the stage onto the spectators and, if you are sitting in the orchestra at the side or in the balcony, you can
clearly see the outlines of other audience
members on the other side of the stage.
This means, as Guthrie said early on, the
audience can see itself and therefore the
proscenium picture book illusion is broken-the audience knows they are at a
play and can never forget it. It becomes
part of the experience.
Michael Langham, the Stratford
Festival's second artistic director, described the impact on acting styles as
follows: [on the proscenium stage] "the

actors must play to the audience and
only pretend to play to each other, while
on the open stage their bond of relationship is direct, true, and complete, and
serves to pull the audience deeply into
the experience of the play. The audience
is physically closer to the actors than in
any but the smallest proscenium theatre
at the same time as being seen from
three sides, putting onto the actor a duty
towards naturalism at the same time as
requiring the best technique-the blend
of which is uniquely 'Stratford.'"
From the perspective of staging, the
bare thrust stage allows the director and
designer to move away from the old pictorial realism of the proscenium stage's
illusionistic scenery-which took time to
move from scene to scene and held up
the story. Instead, the setting on a thrust
stage can be suggested through design
elements, principally furniture and costuming-leaving the actors to move from
scene to scene with a new fluidity. The
Boston Herald noted in 1953 how the
Stratford stage accomplished this: "It is
particularly interesting to observe how
this multi-level, multi-exit permanent setting not only does away with the need
for formal scenery but makes possible
a continuous flow of action and movement when the text of a play, as in so
much of Richard III, calls for the rapid
manoeuvring of large crowds of people,
either in procession or in violent action.
That it also lends flavour and variety in
the far more intimate story of All's Well
That Ends Well, is also very encouraging
for it indicates that even Shakespeare's
closet dramas gain by this liberation of
action." This heightened level of engagement among actors Prosser likens to
"the three-dimensional, cross-cutting
cinematic quality of the thrust stage."
The success of the first season was
unequivocal-the initial four-week run
was extended to six-and the festival was
keen to expand its repertoire for its second year. In addition to two Shakespeare
works, Measure for Measure and The
Taming of the Shrew, Guthrie wanted to
venture beyond Elizabethan drama, for
which the stage seemed particularly well
suited, and added the ancient Greek play
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.

Changes and Upgrades

In spite of the versatility of the thrust
stage to accommodate different styles of
WINTER 2018

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THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2018
