Performance space
This section gives examples of exploring the creation of dramatic space for performance.
- Introduction
- Thrust stages
- Greek amphitheatres
- Elizabethan theatre
- Proscenium stage
- The apron stage
- Theatre in the round
- The traverse stage
- Promenade theatre
- Theatre in Education (TIE)
- Marae theatre
Introduction
Performance space is usually divided into a place or places for the performers and a place or places for the audience. The way these spaces are shaped helps to convey ideas about the drama or performance as well as influencing interaction of the participants or performers and their audience. Performance spaces may be formal or informal, of simple design or highly sophisticated. Different theatre forms and periods use performance space in characteristic ways.
The size and shape of performance space directly influences acting styles. For example, because of the distance between audience and orchestra (see “Greek amphitheatres” below), Greek theatre employed masks to help the audience see the characters’ stylised faces. Smaller spaces allow the audience a more intimate and immediate experience. Theatre conventions also establish how the actor may use the space, for example, how to enter and exit it.
Thrust stages
Thrust stages (images 11 and 12, poster 4) consist of an acting space surrounded on three sides by the audience. The thrust configuration is the oldest known type of fixed staging. Thrust staging gives the audience a good all-round, close view of the action. This view comes at a cost: large scenic elements can be placed only at the rear of the stage.
Greek amphitheatres
Greek theatres (image 13, poster 4) catered for a large audience. Some, like the amphitheatre at Epidauros shown in this image, could seat up to twenty thousand people. These theatres began as a semicircle of seats carved into a hillside, with a round flat space, the orchestra, at the bottom. The orchestra was used by the chorus, who sang, danced, and commented on the action of the play. A corridor on either side of the orchestra called the parados, separated the acting area from the audience; the chorus could enter and exit from the parados.
After 456 BC, changing rooms, called the skene, were built at the back of the orchestra for the actors. (The modern words scene and scenery are derived from this Greek word.) Scenes showing settings from the play were painted on to the skene.
A low, narrow acting platform in front of the skene elevated actors above the chorus. This platform was called the proskenion, meaning in front of the skene. (The modern word proscenium comes from this Greek word.) Later the skene became a two-storeyed building with entrances at the front and sides used by the actors to enter and exit the acting area. The second storey of the skene is called the episkenion.
This created three levels of the acting space:
- the orchestra
- the proskenion
- the episkenion.
Playwrights used these levels to represent the mortals and the gods or different classes in Greek society.
Although large in scale, Greek amphitheatres had excellent acoustics, and actors could be heard even in the back rows. Greek plays were performed in daylight, and dramas were frequently designed to take advantage of the sun’s position. Theatre sites were also chosen to make the most of natural light.
Elizabethan theatre
Wandering minstrels and players travelling from town to town used simple thrust stages. They would set up a platform in the inn yard so that performers could be seen above the heads of the crowd. Any nearby windows or doors might be incorporated into the performance or used by richer people to view it, while ordinary people watched from the yard.
In 1576, the first purpose-built theatre in London was built for James Burbage. The Theatre, as it was called, was circular with an open roof, not unlike the Wellington stadium but much smaller. The stage thrust out from one wall and was surrounded by the audience on three sides. The Theatre had raised galleries for the rich, while ordinary people (the groundlings) stood at ground level. The back wall of the stage served as a backdrop to the play. In this period, there was usually one permanent set.
This is the type of stage on which Shakespeare’s company of actors performed. The theatre he made famous is called the Globe (image 12, poster 4). The historic Globe was three stories high and about 30 metres in diameter. The stage was approximately 12 metres wide, 9 metres deep, and 1.5 metres high. Up to two thousand people could cram into the Globe.
Doorways at the back of the stage on either side allowed actors to make entrances and exits. Also at the back of the stage, an inner stage could be closed from audience view by drawing a curtain. This inner stage could be used to represent a room in a house, a cave, or a cell. Above the inner stage, the balcony could represent the upper storey of a house. A canopy supported by stage posts covered most of the stage. High above the stage was a turret from which a trumpeter would announce the start of the performance. There was also a musicians’ gallery for live music to accompany the action.
Proscenium stage
Image 5, poster 4
From the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the proscenium arch (image 14, poster 4) has been the most common form of theatre stage. The arch is like an exterior picture frame through which the action can be seen. The proscenium stage is the largish stage space set behind the permanent arch or frame. The action of the play effectively takes place in a room with three physical walls and a fourth invisible wall across the front of the stage. The audience sits directly in front of the stage looking into the room through the invisible wall. This type of stage is also known as an end stage.
Proscenium arches from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are often gilded and highly ornate. Most theatres built from the 1950s onwards have an open arch or an undecorated aperture in a wall. Many school halls have this type of stage.
The word proscenium comes from Greek theatre. (See the section above on Greek theatre.) The word means literally “in front of the scenes or scenery”. Actors on a proscenium stage usually perform in front of painted scenery and elaborate sets. The actors enter and exit from wings at the sides of the stage. Set elements and props can also be stored in and brought on from the wings. Above the stage, there is room for drops, lights, and other equipment to be hung and used.
The stage can be closed off from the audience by a curtain marking the end of a scene or act and allowing the scenery to be changed out of sight.
Directors and actors think of the stage area as having nine parts. The back is called upstage, because proscenium stages are frequently raked or sloped upwards away from the audience. A raked stage gives the audience a better view of actors standing at the back or higher than the actors at the front (downstage). Stage right and stage left are defined from the actors’, rather than the audience’s, point of view.
Actors working on a proscenium stage have to work hard to project their voices out of the arch and to make their actions clear to the audience.
The apron stage
An apron is a segment of stage protruding through and beyond the proscenium arch. Traditionally, actors use the apron to break through the proscenium and directly address the audience (for example, in an aside). The apron was also used by comic performers or masters of ceremonies in music hall and vaudeville productions.
There is debate over when in European theatre history the concept of breaking through the proscenium originated. We know from texts that many of Shakespeare’s characters addressed the audience – it is generally accepted that all of Shakespeare’s characters were “aware” of their audience. This contrasts with renaissance theatre styles, where only the characters who entered the apron, or who directly confided in the audience, showed awareness of the auditorium and audience.
In some theatres with proscenium arches, the audience are seated in several tiers. The cost of a seat in such playhouses reflects how good a view of the stage the seat offers. In some periods of theatre history, where you sat (and could be seen by other audience members) also reflected your social class.
The upper tiers highest and furthest from the stage are called the gods or the gallery. Lower tiers, closer to the stage, are known as the dress circle, because it was customary for wealthy audience members to dress in formal clothes to attend the theatre. The ground level is known as the stalls. In some periods, the stalls were the place for the lower classes to stand; in others, these were also filled with seating for more well-off audience members.
Theatre in the round
In theatre in the round (image 1, poster 4), the audience surrounds the acting space. This provides the audience with a very intimate theatre experience because they are seated close to the actors and the stage. Theatre in the round also allows the audience to see one another during the performance. A 360-degree sightline means that large scenery is out of the question unless it is suspended above the actors’ heads, which would be out of the audience’s view. Theatre in the round format tends to be chosen for intimate productions, although some large-scale opera and theatre productions have also used it.
The traverse stage
Traverse is a form of catwalk with the audience seated on two sides of the acting space. Like theatre in the round, traverse stages can be used as an intimate setting and can also be used for larger productions. For example, in 1991, the Derby Playhouse Community Theatre mounted a large-scale production based on the events on Christmas Day 1914 in the trenches. The audience effectively became the anonymous bulk of the German and British armies from their opposed seats on either side of the stage, watching the action on the traverse. Traverse is well suited to scenes of confrontation.
Promenade theatre
In promenade theatre, there is no formal, fixed stage or seating area. The stage or performance area may be set in various locations in the space. There may not even be a distinction between the area where the audience sit or stand and the space for action. The audience must change their focus, move to watch the action, or even interact or “mingle” with the cast and action. Promenade is a popular format for outdoor performance.
Theatre in Education (TIE)
Theatre in Education (image 11, poster 4) is an effective teaching tool able to employ ways of teaching not normally used in the classroom. The children in the audience may become part of the action and, consequently, the distinction between the area where the audience sit and the space of the drama is blurred, making for a very intimate and involving performance. Because the majority of TIE companies travel to and use schools as venues, they tend to use few props or sets to establish the imaginary space. Any sets these companies use have to be versatile, because school performance spaces vary from traditional proscenium arch halls to classrooms emptied of their desks and tables. In image 11 (poster 4), you see the intimacy of the performance, with the actor just centimetres away from the audience.
Marae theatre
Māori theatre and marae theatre (image 9, poster 4) have grown out of a number of traditions. They have their roots in the performance practices of the marae: whaikōrero (oratory), ritual, and encounter. They also have their roots in the wharenui (meeting house) itself and the stories that are told inside it or that are carved, woven, and painted on its walls and rafters. Māori and marae theatre draw on elements of traditional Māori performance such as haka, waiata, poi, and taiaha. They also draw on aspects of Western theatre.