"The forms of dramatic presentation change very slowly. The history of the theater reveals that new forms have always emerged very gradually. Today, in this exciting age of great technological and psychological advances, theater needs to keep pace with man's rapidly widening horizons. It must expand, or even explode, its visual limits and limitations - somehow, drama must escape completely its architectural confines."
- Ralph Alswang and Paul Rudolph
In 1962, the Ford Foundation commissioned 8 architectural plans for a new theater designed in collaboration with architects, scenic designers, playwrights, theater makers and dancers. Among them included American playwright Arthur Miller and Theater expert George Charles Izenour.
8 Concepts aim was to dream up a future home; a more considered building for the theater of tomorrow. Each concept proposed was in reaction to the monolithic theaters of New Yorks' Broadway. Calling for three dimensional relationships to live bodies, each concept in its own way eschews the flat, two dimensional set up of the proscenium stage. Addressing issues ranging from how to adequately house dance to how to effectively create a stage using projected images, the 8 Concepts are, even today, still considered revolutionary in their reforms. In their concern of audience, each concept eloquently and throughly discusses the role of the spectator and their function in the theater space. This is exactly the kind of groundwork Richard Schechner was calling for in Performance Theory when he asked for a stronger assessment of the performance event: from the time the old ladies put on their makeup to the post show debauchery - but presented here specifically in relationship to space and architecture. Though I don't think any of the concepts were ever actualized, they still hold that same inquisitive energy that was fueling the postmodern theater movement of the 1960's.
Aside from its content, the book itself, designed by Rudolph de Harak demands as much attention as do the concepts themselves. Each concept is color coded and accompanied by offset-lithographs of its buildings layout, printed on color paper fold outs. With over 50 photographs and heavy block print, it stands as an art object in itself.
I couldn't help but imagine what the theater of our tomorrow would look like; how it would function and what would fill it? This lead me to believe that the theater of tomorrow would be a building that occupied two lots. One with the structure itself, the other to hold its remains. Constantly this building would be in either construction of demolition, depending on the needs of the resident company. As the live work of today is occupied with de- and reconstructing performance as a medium, so would its building. It would be a living, organic building; one that showed its transformations, showed its skins. An adequate, tangible metaphor for performance itself: one site for the live body, the other for its remains.
Aside from its content, the book itself, designed by Rudolph de Harak demands as much attention as do the concepts themselves. Each concept is color coded and accompanied by offset-lithographs of its buildings layout, printed on color paper fold outs. With over 50 photographs and heavy block print, it stands as an art object in itself.
I couldn't help but imagine what the theater of our tomorrow would look like; how it would function and what would fill it? This lead me to believe that the theater of tomorrow would be a building that occupied two lots. One with the structure itself, the other to hold its remains. Constantly this building would be in either construction of demolition, depending on the needs of the resident company. As the live work of today is occupied with de- and reconstructing performance as a medium, so would its building. It would be a living, organic building; one that showed its transformations, showed its skins. An adequate, tangible metaphor for performance itself: one site for the live body, the other for its remains.
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