Bristol Old Vic, the world's most important historical theatre: ignored by Universities.

Photo source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2011/may/16/18th-century-bristol-old-vic

      The Bristol Old Vic is the U. K.'s oldest working theatre and probably the most important historical theatre in the world. 
      This blog examines how theatre space affects the way we experience play performance.  
      The space at Bristol is currently being rebuilt after extensive investigations led by its Andrejz Blonski architects, whose passion for the very special qualities of this space, thankfully holds the project together.   
       My extensive research of its 18th century archive since 1984 leads me to disagree with some of the findings of the current researchers, especially with regard to its stage front and performer-spectator relationship. 
      My passion for this arises from the fact that so many people have been wrong about Bristol before.  Strangely, till Andrejz took over researchers completely ignored this theatre space's significance.

• 1766 - Opened illegally by 2 actors and 2 merchants. 
• 1778 - "Theatre Royal" 
• 1946 - saved by Arts Council, renamed "Bristol Old Vic" and ignored by scholars, wrongly claiming it had been "rebuilt" in the nineteenth century.
• 2007, following bankruptcy, Arts Council saved it again. 

I emailed the theatre, shocked at the closure.  I repeatedly proposed the time has come to investigate its surviving structure and restore its three-sided stage front to cultivate packed attendance.  There's no doubt that Tom Morris' decision to do this in 2009 has dramatically restored the life of this performance space .   I don't doubt its rebuild will inject even more magic. 
      Anyone entering this theatre can see it has links to Shakespeare's playhouses: the same galleries, the same gathering of spectators around three sides of the stage front, the same positive and exciting energy created by this space. 
Bristol and Shakespeare's Globe
Others who foolishly ignored Bristol include the consultants to Sam Wanamaker's wonderful reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe.  
     My recent article ("Acting Spaces and Carpenters' Tools", Around the Globe 47 (16 Dec. 2010), 34-35) shows carpenter Drury Lane carpenter James Saunders planned Bristol using the same traditional geometry and dimensions carpenter theatre-builders James Burbage, Peter Street, John Griggs, William Sylvester and John Reynolds employed in Shakespeare's time.  
     Iain Mackintosh (Architecture, Actors and Audience, 1993, 24) described this "continuity of character" thus: 

"The evidence is that those theatres which have become the centre of artistic and intellectual life over the last 400 years have rarely offered great comfort or perfect sight-lines but have rather been small, uncomfortable and densely packed.   In such playhouses... the actors are generally placed at one end of the space on a modestly equipped stage.  The audience is placed on three sides of the acting area, with the greater proportion to the front." (My emphasis)

Sadly, Mackintosh also ignored Bristol.  
     The Bristol auditorium is as close to Garrick's Drury Lane as we are ever going to get.  With its performance space accurately reflecting its performer-spectator relationship,  it can show us how play performances worked during the long eighteenth century.  
The stage front with spectators on three-sides
Key to this is the fact that the Bristol space facilitates a performer-spectator relationship comparable with the Rose Theatre of 1587.  When we watch Romeo and Juliet on stage at the Rose in the film "Shakespeare in Love" we can see how the Bristol playhouse was designed to work. It's easy to see that Bristol, like the Rose, had spectators on three sides of the stage front, just as Mackintosh claimed.
     Unfortunately, David Wilmore and Peter Carey argue the Bristol Theatre had no stage boxes on the stage floor.  In "The Theatre Royal, Bristol: A new door opens," Theatres Magazine (Summer 2010), 5-8, the write:   

"Interrogation of the 1766 box booking plan, the existence of which had long been known, allowed a hypothesis to emerge that these lower stage-side boxes were originally the proscenium doors, with the principal stage boxes being on the upper level. This was finally corroborated by the previously overlooked detail of the dress circle box fronts which shows a number of obvious carpentry interventions, namely equidistant saw cuts in the skirtings and mouldings, which would precisely match the location of lost the proscenium doors. So, the original proscenium doors were in fact located within this bay and not, as had previously been thought, within the “upstage” bay as depicted in the 1950’s photograph."

n skirting line indicates l

Our research must be right, this time round.
In my next posting, I present evidence that suggests the 'heritage team' are wrong because they prioritise their structural discoveries over the documentary evidence.    
    New evidence I discovered in 1984-5 shows Bristol probably had stage boxes on the front of its stage floor when it opened in 1766.  This includes:

•  plans (1842) and a sectional drawing (1799) showing the Theatre Royal Richmond Surrey, 
• three or four plans showing other Theatres Royal (Bath, 1767, Edinburgh, 1768), 
• drawings (Little Theatre in the Haymarket, 1766, and Drury Lane, 1769) 
• structural remains (of the Theatre at King's Lynn 1766) 

     All these theatres had stage-boxes on their stage floors. If Bristol had no stage-boxes on the stage floor, its Proprietors risked closure of their illegal theatre.   Stage-boxes were essential to protect new theatres because they accommodated the most respectable patrons - local Magistrates, like John and Matthew Brickdale - politicians and aristocrats who prevented its closure.   
Conclusion
Successful play performances are inspired by having spectators on three sides of the stage front, because this kind of space challenges performers to be more imaginatively engaging of spectators.   Performers move and speak more imaginatively on a stage front with spectators on the sides than they might on a stage with spectators only in front.     
     Building doors in the place of stage boxes on Bristol's stage front (as the heritage team's article suggests) is not just a structural error: it harms the way carpenter James Saunders designed this theatre to work as a "theatre room": a single, shared space for play performances.  Doors on the sides of the stage will block or suppress the "channel of energy" (Mackintosh) between the stage and the auditorium.