Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSuperb … if you have a theatre aficionado in your family, this beautifully illustrated, thoroughly opinionated volume ought to be on your list. With six decades of experience to call on, Mackintosh has no end of lessons to pass on. * The Times *
The virtue of his book is that it is the work of a knowledgeable enthusiast, and proves that, while the play’s the thing, the frame in which it is seen is crucial to our enjoyment. * The Guardian *
Iain Mackintosh describes his book as a memoir, but it is also a comprehensive handbook for theatre makers and audiences the world over. A one stop shop for anyone interested in how the delicate and vital relationship between audience and performance has evolved over centuries. Upon his shoulders I have stood for 30 years. His argument and understanding is as vital today as it always has been. Essential reading. * Stephen Daldry O.B.E. *
Like the man himself, Iain Mackintosh’s memoir is erudite, trenchant, occasionally infuriating but always entertaining, enthusiastic and informative. Anyone who wants to understand more deeply the complexities and subtleties of theatre architecture should read this book. * Steve Tompkins, Director, HaworthTompkins *
Iain’s memoir is a potpourri of historical thesis, personal recollection and entertaining gossip. It gives a glimpse of the theatre world and the agonies and ecstasies of achieving buildings suited to purpose. * Anne Minors, Founding Director, SOUND SPACE VISION, Theatre Planning and Acoustics *
This book clears a luminous space of insight at the point where the pragmatics of architecture meet the poetics of the theatrical moment. Iain Mackintosh gleans highly consequential lessons about the challenge of engineering intimacy in the modern theatre auditorium from his long and rich practice. He also grounds them so deftly in their particular, British, history that they begin to acquire a universal appeal. With its stylish writing and generous, well-chosen illustrations this book vivifies and clarifies a theme that has been as elusive as it is important. * Himanshu Burte, Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay, India *
A revelatory and much needed guide to the structure of theatres both in Britain and abroad. Iain Mackintosh reveals how certain architectural choices can be traced to having an effect on a performance: for example it’s easier to play comedy in a narrow proscenium, very hard to raise a laugh on the wide stages of the Olivier or the Lyttelton, and how crucial it is to the success of a play that it is performed in its correct home. It’s an amazingly detailed research of great value to anyone performing on stage today and a necessity for future architects. * Dame Eileen Atkins *
A vivid hybrid manifesto/memoir … It is simply an essential book: authoritative, original, comprehensive, compulsively readable, beautifully designed. You can dip in and out; even if you just visit one of these venues casually, you will find this engrossing. * Plays International & Europe *
This book is the distillation of a lifetime's experience and study, the unique and practical voice of a true man of the theatre ... The writing is always stylish, and the book is well referenced and copiously illustrated with photos, diagrams and plans. If you are going to read one book on theatre spaces this should be it -- Peter Longman * Theatres Magazine *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Foreword by Richard Eyre An Introduction and a Summary
Act 1 Pre-1920: Setting the Scene and Some Early Pioneers Chapter One: Theatre is Ephemeral While Buildings Endure. Some Necessary Background Chapter Two: Richard Wagner, Adolphe Appia and the Spreading of the Fan
Act II 1920 Chapter Three: The Festival Cambridge, Stratford-upon-Avon and Early Days of the National Chapter Four: Guthrie’s Thrust Stages Chapter Five: Germany’s Building Boom and Anglo-American Shakespeare Chapter Six: The Olivier, the Lyttelton and the Barbican Theatres
Act III 1976–2020: The Past Informs the Present Chapter Seven: The Cottesloe and Other Courtyards Chapter Eight: Worthy Scaffolds: Brook’s Empty Space and Spaces Found by Others Chapter Nine: Regenerating the Old Offers an Antidote to Modernism. Part One: English Theatres of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Chapter Ten: Regenerating the old offers an antidote to modernism. Part Two: A Couple of Twentieth-century Scottish Theatres Reborn – One in Edinburgh and the Other in Florida Chapter Eleven: New Opera Houses from Glyndebourne to Dallas. Elsewhere Some Starchitects Upstage the Performers Chapter Twelve: Learning from the Netherlands, Berlin, Brazil, Australia, Indian and Chinese Cultures. The Threat of Internationalism Chapter Thirteen: 2010–2020: Some New Builds, Two Renovations – One at Stratford-upon-Avon and One in London – And Diversions on In-the-round and the Open Air
Act IV 2021: The Future Chapter Fourteen: Unforeseen Consequences of Seventeenth-century Plagues, of the Arrival of the Talkies and the More Recent Dangers of the Pandemic and of ‘Virtual Theatre’. Some Central Themes Restated References Further Reading Acknowledgements Theatre Index Person Index
