Internationalism in the theatre today has erased national and local styles in decor and staging. The great leap in facilities for travel and the network of international festivals throughout the world has greatly facilitated the cross-fertilization of styles and influences. It is not surprising that the resulting eclecticism of taste has imposed certain imperatives on theatre design. This has also been affected by an interaction of economic factors. Theatres occupy prime sites in city centres. In the post-World War II building boom, these sites became targets for property speculators seeking to exploit them for more profitable purposes. The return on investment and capital costs in theatres is very low in comparison with other fields of investment. In Britain a vast number of theatres disappeared completely in the decade following 1945.
The keynote in the postwar rebuilding of theatres has been flexibility. Eclecticism in style has led to demand for flexible auditoriums. In response to directorial demand, a number of theatres were built in Scandinavia in which the size and relationship of stage and auditorium can be adjusted by mechanical means.
It has become customary for many contemporary theatres to have a studio theatre attached to a main-house theatre. These studios are usually well-equipped “black boxes” with adaptable seating that allows a limited variety of forms of presentation—usually end-on, half-thrust, full-thrust, and arena staging. The National Theatre in London has three auditoriums of different types. The Royal Shakespeare Company has three auditoriums in Stratford and also uses some improvised areas; the company has two auditoriums in London. This variety of facilities lends flexibility to production planning. Less commercial productions can also be mounted in the studio theatres when the risk is too high to give them main-house runs. The rise of alternative theatre spaces
The search for flexibility in designing a multipurpose hall that could be used for theatre, music, exhibitions, and sporting events has rarely been successful. The acoustic needs of theatre and music are widely different, and acoustic shields (suspended or freestanding panels used to alter the acoustic properties of a space) are at best corrective devices. Nevertheless, economic factors have frequently dictated that this is the only possible way in which smaller communities can be provided with performance spaces, and the design of such spaces is becoming more sophisticated and efficient.
The adverse economics of Broadway has severely restricted the range of productions that can be presented in those theatres. Investment is high and the risk of losing all has led to a policy that favours mass-appeal productions such as the musical, which can at least produce a high box-office return. Experimental productions stand little chance of finding a backer. Since the 1950s the sterility of Broadway has been countered by a growth of small Off-Broadway theatres, and, in turn, so-called Off-Off-Broadway. Nontheatre buildings have been pressed into use—cafés, garages, fire stations, churches, lofts, and shops. The example of the converted theatres in New York City spread to other countries. In many cases these theatres have been the home of innovative companies for many years. Otherwise they have formed the basis of a new touring circuit for small companies. The growth of the study and practice of theatre in educational institutions, starting in the United States in the 1930s and spreading to Europe after World War II, led to the formation of many small experimental and radical theatre groups in the 1960s and ’70s. These groups formed the nucleus of the companies adapting and playing the informal theatres.
One further reason for the development of adaptable, flexible, and multipurpose theatre spaces has been the pattern of decentralization followed by many Western governments since World War II. In France, in particular, there has been a government policy of subsidizing theatre away from Paris through the founding of maisons de la culture (“houses of culture”) and centres dramatiques (“dramatic centres”). The dual policy has been to create the facilities for a range of cultural activities in the towns and cities of the provinces and to establish theatre companies touring in specific areas from a home base. The development of lightweight electronic equipment, particularly lighting control, has greatly facilitated touring. The influence of Grotowski and the Polish Laboratory Theatre
The other major tendency in today’s theatre arises from an investigation of the sources of the theatre’s uniqueness and strength. The prophet of this search was the French dramatist and poet Antonin Artaud, with his vision of a total, visceral theatre with the potency and terror of primitive myths. As was the case with Craig and Appia, his actual performances were few, but his writings inspired many directors, such as Peter Brook in England, Gerald Savory in France, and Jerzy Grotowski, whose Polish Laboratory Theatre, a fiercely dedicated acting ensemble, sought to cut through the bonds of the polite literary tradition to rediscover basic human drives and conflicts. The actors in the Laboratory Theatre undergo exhaustive exercises designed to break down the layers of superficial technique and repressions. Each production is conceived as a unique entity, requiring its own playing space and actor–audience relationship; the rectangular hall-theatre is rearranged according to the dictates of each production. Grotowski relies on his own dramaturgical skills in freely molding the texts and on his architect-designer for the carving of the space in which the ritual takes place.
Grotowski’s form of theatre is often called poor theatre on account of the simple circumstances in which it takes place. This characteristic recalls Copeau’s idea of “the greatest possible effect from the least possible means.” The internationalism of the theatre is now such that groups modeled on Grotowski’s have appeared throughout the world. Eugenio Barba, of Odin Theater in Holstebro, Den., a pupil of Grotowski, has formulated the ideological position of these theatres under the term third theatre. His book The Floating Islands (1979) examines a theatre existing independently that creates from whatever material resources are at hand. Barba has sought to return to theatre as a way of life, seeing this pattern in the origins of the commedia dell’arte, the wandering players, and in Molière’s company. The third theatre groups give performances, but they insist that the relationships engendered by their work, inside and outside the company, are the criteria by which they judge it. The members of the Odin Theatre have established a form of bartering in which they exchange their work for some cultural offering from the people of the regions they visit.
Because the third theatre is a way of life, the actors’ “work” is a full-time activity. Actors have their own daily training regimen. The actors’ work is enriched by the acquisition of other skills, particularly the techniques of Oriental theatre.
Because of the crippling expense of mainstream Western theatre and the development of these experimental groups, the theatre in the late 20th century has become highly polarized. On the one hand, there are “rich” commercial productions that rely heavily on technological spectacle; on the other hand are the small “poor” experimental groups exclusively centred on the art of the actor. Consequently, the traditional centres of theatre are losing their potency, except in their power to divert. The sources of real theatrical advance and interest are now dispersed throughout the world, and one is as likely to find exciting work in New Guinea as in New York City and London.