Another time, another place
It may look like a rusty old shipping container, but it’s actually the Courtyard Theatre, the temporary home of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford and the building that the company occupies while the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre across the road is being rebuilt. When I first saw it, I didn’t think it was going to be my sort of building. Although I rather like rusty old corrugated iron barns, this ugly duckling seemed at first sight a bit too industrial for Stratford’s swan-haunted riverside, too harsh for its cottage neighbours.
But the Courtyard Theatre has grown on me. It’s not just like I admire the warm tones of its rusty ridges as they glow in the sun; not only that I appreciate the rightness of a temporary metal building on the site of the RSC’s former ‘experimental’ space, The Other Place. I’ve also discovered the qualities of the interior, a compact and friendly theatrical arena that seems to inspire those who perform in it. A few weeks ago at the Courtyard I enjoyed hugely the combined RSC/Baxter Theatre Centre production of The Tempest. The other night I was entertained by As You Like It.
The entire audience is close to the stage, and the design of the interior gives plenty of opportunities for the actors to enter and exit between the seats, bringing players and spectators still closer together. And the whole space is warm and, for such a modern, box-like building, curiously responsive, housing equally happily As You Like It’s doom-laden, almost oppressive early scenes, and its cheerful, life-enhancing conclusion.
In the interval of The Tempest, various members of the audience were speculating about what would happen to this temporary building when the main theatre comes back into use towards the end of next year. I got the impression that most of them – including some local people who had to live with its industrial-looking exterior – rather hoped it would stay.
Cor, talk about frank juxtaposition!
ReplyDeletePhilip, thank you for a wonderfully informative post. Having seen Michael Horden as King Lear, (to cement the play into my consciousness for my A' level), in the old RSC digs, it was great to be updated on the goings on in Stratford. Hats off to you for a furtive St. Geogre's Day post :)
ReplyDeleteVinogirl: Thought people would spot the St George's Day relevance! I too did King Lear for A level, but no one seemed to be putting on the play that year so I had to make do (!) with Paul Schofield's film version.
ReplyDeleteI miss Michael Hordern. Watch again Jonathan Miller's Whistle and I'll Come to You for him in full flow. It's a BBC film adaptation of the M.R.James ghost story. Wish I'd seen Hordern at Stratford though. Bet he'd have spluttered dramatically at the rusty theatre.
ReplyDeleteYes, Michael Hordern was marvellous: an unmitigatedly English actor with an uncanny range of vocal effects. I only saw him live once, in the original production of Tom Stoppard's Jumpers, in which his wife was played by Diana Rigg.
ReplyDeleteI really shouldn't bother with blogs after a bottle of wine.
ReplyDeleteIt was Michael Gambon...not Hordern. Although it definitely was Jenny Aguter as Regan...hic!
Nice discussion of one of England's finest actors though!
It's a Photoshop building! Well captured. My late lamented English teacher spent as much of his holidays as he could at Stratford and because of his straitened circumstances, camped. Whenever it rained at night he felt it his bounden duty to run around the campsite easing the tightening guy ropes on his neighbours tents. But I digress. He much favoured Eric Porter as an actor.
ReplyDeleteAh, Michael Gambon. Another national treasure - though also an Irish national treasure. His Lear was apparently terrific. I've only seen him on the small and large screens, above all in Dennis Potter's masterpiece, The Singing Detective, but also as one of the actors who has incarnated Simenon's Maigret. Perhaps that makes him a French national treasure too.
ReplyDeleteJenny Agutter (sigh) - well worth going to Stratford to see.
ReplyDeleteAs you are a crinkly tin afficianado, Philip, you may like BISF houses (http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image.php?inum=TGSA00785).
Designed by Frederick Gibberd, you can still see plenty around the country, although many have been modernised by councils and had their cladding replaced by something less aesthetically pleasing.
Oh yes, I've seen these BISF houses. They can look quite good when they're well maintained. Weren't there some kinds of prefabs clad in a similar material too?
ReplyDelete