R-E-S-P-E-C-T

It seems that it would come down to perception and presteige. As our department was not so long ago, the obsession to feed the New York Theatre machine seems one without end. In today's market, there is no greater compliment for a theatre (artistically or financially) than to have a work move from the regions into New York--let alone in a Broadway space. Thus, we have an "American" theatre within the "Regional" theatre movement--which makes about as much sense as lumping the various theatres across the Atlantic into "European" theatre.

It is seen through the staging of new work and the treatment of new playwrights. what better way to showcase a play's "viability" in the Broadway market than to stage it on a proscenium. If successful, then the play must only be transposed onto a new (and supposedly unaltering) performance space. Layered on like a static cling decal.

Late 19th Century Proscenium

Vaudville House in Boston--built in the late 1800s. The edge of the apron is still a straight line.

Restoration Proscenium II

with retreated apron... turned into a straight line from left to right

Restoration Proscenium

Paul Baker--interview with Richard Schechner

"I have for years tried to define proscenium thinking. I understand why people cling to it--like sailors on a sinking raft. Proscenium thinking is not usually thinking, but a director's reaction to a set form following accepted principles. A director can work in a proscenium theatre for years without a single new idea or thought; it stimulates formula directing."

-Paul Baker, 1968


Baker is a delightfully colorful West Texas nonagenarian-and a theatrical genius. Over the last 50 years, he has created significant academic theater programs at Baylor and Trinity universities, become the founding artistic director of the Dallas Theater Center (which he ran for over two decades and in doing so helped launch the strong post-World War II American regional theater movement), developed and directed hundreds of original plays, advanced the state of theater architecture and design, and written a seminal text, Integration of Abilities: Exercises for Creative Growth.
.-Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX

I'D RATHER BE A CYBORG THAN AN ACTOR... part 5

In the years of the English Restoration the rise of the proscenium stage and proscenium arch overcame the thrust. Additionally, scenery became more elaborate and a love affair with realistic settings began. As time progressed, the area that the pit occupied moved further towards the stage, until most of the apron was pushed behind the proscenium arch and the audience was effectively barred from the area conceived as "onstage". A few centuries later, thanks to Thomas Edison and his incandescent light bulb, a greater divide was established between the actor and the audience.

Performances began to become more concerned with "realism" and "historically accurate" tendencies. Plot took precedence over experience and the upper classes moved closer towards the stage, pushing the members of the middle and lower classes towards the rear. As monarchies dissolved in the 1700s, theatres became increasingly middle class and began to cater to more bourgeois tastes. In addition to effectively ending the raucous behavior of "the pit", this rearranging of priorities allowed upper class tastes to dominate the theatres.

In addition to changes in stagecraft and theatre construction, there seemed to be a shift in how the plays of the restoration and afterward addressed the audience. While the days of pure direct address (such as in Shakespeare's time and that of the Greek chorus) were more or less passe, theatre historian Dr. Dawn Lewcock argues that there was a kind of onstage shorthand that maintained this relationship in an article entitled "Converse with the Audience in Restoration Theatre". In addition to prologues meant to instruct the audience in how to behave--both mannerly and unmannerly--she argues that onstage characters shift between characters and actors. Continuing her argument, the "inside jokes" of the time worked as an inside conversation that took place between the audience and the performers. As theatre changed, the "inside dialogue" disappeared.