Architecture, Actor and Audience

Best book about theatre space

Beautifully written, extremely articulate & rooted in both his own experience of producing plays with Prospect Theatre as well as his own detailed research of extensive primary source evidence, Iain's book is an astonishing analysis of how & why theatre spaces work now and in history. Citing some of the most highly esteemed practitioners, including Peter Brook, Shakespeare, and architects, Iain demonstrates how wrong theatre historians have been to isolate theatres as simply architectural structures. Iain highlights their function: performance. He reminds readers of this fact again and again. He presents the known geometrical analysis of theatre spaces (rooted in the works of John Orrell - for Shakespeare's playhouses - Axel Burrough - for the surviving Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, 1819 - and Mark Howell - for the surviving Georgian Theatre at Richmond, Yorkshire, 1788) as the best basis for building new playhouses that will enhance performances of plays and opera. This inspiring book should be the first of a series that can be read and applied in theatre building & play performances simultaneously. One criticism must be highlighted: Iain's shameful omission of Bristol's Old Vic (Theatre Royal, Bristol) because this playhouse best exemplifies what Iain accurately describes as a "continuity of character" in the most inspiring playhouses from the 16th c. to the present: small, uncomfortable, with people papering the walls, with spectators on three sides of the stage, albeit with most to the front.