193 



THEATRE. 



THEATRE. 



191 



might have been brought in. The scena, for which unlimited admira- 

 tion is claimed, abounds in architectural barbarisms and solecisms. It 

 is, however, the avenues seen beyond the scena through the centre 

 arch and other openings which attract notice, and have been extolled 

 by some as greatly superior to the " flimsy " painted decorations upon 

 canvas used in modern theatres. Those avenues represent as many 

 streets, the fronts of the buildings being modelled or carved in relief, 

 and attempted to be shown in perspective by the floor and ceiling 

 sloping very much upwards and downwards, and the other horizontal 

 lines accordingly, and by the passages themselves being narrower at 

 the further end. The contrivance is puerile at the best ; and instead 

 of being more deceptive or natural than painted scenery, the imitative 

 perspective becomes distorted when viewed from any other situation 

 than the centre of the theatre and the level of the stage. It is also 

 difficult to understand how these narrow enclosed passages could have 

 been properly lighted at the time of a performance ; and although they 

 are, in stage language, " practicable," they could hardly have been made 

 use of, at least not for their whole extent, because at their further end 

 an actor would appear gigantic. We are not aware of more than one 

 other attempt to revive the ancient theatre in all its strictness, which 

 was that built in 1588 at Sabbionetta, for the Duke Vespasiano 

 Gonzaga, by Scamozzi, who completed the Teatro Olimpico after 

 Palladio's death. 



In claiming a decided superiority for the modern theatre over that 

 of the ancients, we speak only as regards the respective systems ; and 

 as Ugoni, in his Life of Milizia, observes, to prefer the Grecian theatre, 

 with all its inconveniences and the awkward expedients resorted to in 

 it, as being of more classical and dignified character than our own 

 comparatively small and fragile yet greatly improved structures of the 

 kind, is to wish to limit art and science within their first bounds. 

 There certainly was good reason at one time for exclaiming against 

 modern theatrical architecture as very defective in regard to the 

 audience portion of the "house." Till within a comparatively Lite 

 period, scarcely any study was bestowed on beauty and convenience of 

 plan. The accommodations were hardly so good as those in many 

 very ordinary playhouses, where for want of space, there are no other 

 seaU than what directly face the stage. The " house " was usually an 

 oblong, either rectangular or elliptical, so that the greater part of the 

 audience, at least those in the boxes, were placed quite on the 

 sides. Where the " house " contracted towards the proscenium, as was 

 frequently the case, the side-boxes were actually turned frum the 

 stage ; and whether such was the case or not, they were allowed to 

 encroach upon the stage itself in such manner, that when the actors 

 advanced to the front of the stage or beyond the line of the curtain, 

 they may be said to have mingled with the audience, and those in the 

 boxes on the amnt-Kene were actually behind them. If we may judge 

 from the plans and other drawings of them, the two principal theatres 

 in London were, even less than a century ago, both as inconvenient and 

 as ugly as can well be imagined. The approaches, too, used formerly 

 to be exceedingly bad ; not only mean and inconvenient, but in many 

 places moot dangerously narrow. Such is strikingly the case in most 

 of the modern Roman theatres, for instead of the box-corridors follow- 

 ing the curve of the " house," and being of the same width throughout, 

 re so contracted where the other is widest, that more than two 

 persons cannot pass. 



Very great reforms have now taken place, yet there in still room 

 fur further improvements, obvious, though not likely to be adopted 

 BO long as it is considered a matter of course that the space before the 

 curtain must be made to contain as many persons as can possibly be 

 packed into it, and that an audience must be piled up around the 

 whole house to the very ceiling. We do not say that modem theatres 

 are too lofty ; the error does not lie there, but in carrying up the 

 boxes, tier after tier, to such a preposterous height that the uppermost 

 box is several feet above the top of the curtain or stage-openings, and 

 the back seats of the upper gallery are actually on a level with the 

 coiling over the pit. Such accumulation of diminutive stories gives a 

 crowtud appearance to the whole, and leaves no space for architectural 

 decoration around the upper part. No doubt a very striking appear- 

 ance of a different kind presents itself from the pit and from the stage, 

 when the house is entirely filled to the very top ; and if we consider 

 merely this mup-tTail from such points, it may be allowed to be 

 ing. But then, as regards that part of the audience who occupy 

 th<i upper part of the house, the arrangement is bad. From the seats 

 which are at all above the level of the top of the curtain, there is only 

 a birdVeye view of the stage and the scenery, and that only from the 

 front seats, and also facing the stage ; for from those on the side of it it 

 in impossible at that height to obtain a sight of the scene or even of the 

 actors, unless when they come forward towards the foot- lights. There 

 should be no seats at a greater height than that of the centre of the 

 curtain, or the level of what is now the second tier of boxes in our 

 large theatres ; for, as the scenery can be painted only to one horizon, 

 generally that of the stage itself, its perspective effect ia more or 

 less impaired when it in neon from either very much above or below 

 that level. No less preposterous* is the practice of continuing the side- 

 boxes up to the proscenium, and sometimes (as in Her Majesty'* 

 Tin ;itre at London) quite up to the very curtain, so that there is no 

 proscenium at all, unless the space on the floor of the stage, between 

 the curtain and foot-light*, can be so called. While those so seated 



ARTS ASD 8CI. DIV. VOL. Vllr. 



lose the scenery altogether, they have the disadvantage of seeing 

 between the wings on the side opposite them ; and although the posi- 

 tive inconvenience resulting from euch arrangement is felt only by a 

 portion of the audience, the bad effect occasioned by it extends to the 

 whole theatre. Not only ought there to be a distinct proscenium, 

 serving as an architectural frame to the stage and its scenery, dividing 

 that part of the theatre from the rest, but it ought to be of much 

 ampler proportions than are now given it. It should extend so far as 

 to leave some interval a sort of neutral ground between the curtain 

 and the boxes, so as to remove the nearest spectator in them to a 

 tolerable distance for properly viewing the stage as a picture ; for it is 

 possible to be as inconveniently near the stage as to be inconveniently 

 distant from it. When, in order to contract the stage, or to render 

 the pit and general diameter of the house considerably greater than 

 what is required for the width of the curtain, the plan is made to 

 approach a circle (as is the case in nearly every theatre built within the 

 last forty years), the boxes should be confined to the semicircle facing 

 the stage ; and, so far from being a blank, the curved space on each 

 side between them and the curtain might be made to contribute very 

 much to the architectural appearance of the whole house. This would 

 not take away anything from the pit; and if it materially diminished the 

 number of the boxes and seats in them, it would be only where there 

 ought to be nothing of the kind. The banishing of boxes from such 

 situations, and making also no more than two tiers, would certainly 

 greatly abridge the present capacities of theatres : a house of the same 



size would not contain the same number of persons as at present, when 

 a large part of the audience are put where they cannot well see the per- 

 formance. It is likely, therefore, to be objected that such a system 

 would be too expensive, since a large house would be requisite for a 



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