Theater Royal (Bath)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Theater Royal, Bath
The entrance from Sawclose Street, which was laid out in 1863
location
Address: Sawclose, BA1 1ET
City: Bath
Coordinates: 51 ° 22 '56 "  N , 2 ° 21' 46"  W Coordinates: 51 ° 22 '56 "  N , 2 ° 21' 46"  W.
Architecture and history
Opened: 1805
Spectator: 888 seats
Architects: George Dance the Younger , John Palmer, Charles J. Phipps (rebuilt 1863)
Internet presence:
Website: https://www.theatreroyal.org.uk/

The Theater Royal in Bath , England , was built in 1805. It has been described as "one of the most important remaining examples of Georgian theater architecture". The auditorium has 888 seats.

The construction of the Theater Royal replaced the Old Orchard Street Theater (built 1747-1750), which then closed and was rededicated as a Catholic church. The financing was done through a tontine . The architect was George Dance the Younger , along with the local architect John Palmer . At the opening was a performance of Shakespeare's Richard III. given. Many well-known mimes of this time appeared: Dorothea Jordan , William Macready and Edmund Kean . A great fire destroyed the entire interior of the building in 1862, but the reconstruction was quickly carried out under the direction of the theater architect Charles J. Phipps . It was he who designed today's entrance. Further renovations and alterations followed in 1892 and 1902, including a new staircase and the installation of electric lights. Despite performances with famous characters like Sarah Bernhardt , Anna Pawlowa and Mrs. Patrick Campbell , the theater was not very profitable. During the Second World War, stars Donald Wolfit , Irene Vanbrugh, John Gielgud and Sybil Thorndike also appeared, with shows such as Noël Cowards Private Lives and Blyth Spirit , a performance by the Rambert Dance Company and light entertainment such as Charley's aunt , but the audience numbers fell .

In 1979 the theater was bought by a trust and renovated with donations. A new stage was built and a new pull system for scenery and lights was installed. In 1997 a new smaller theater with 150 seats, the Ustinov Studio, was opened. The Egg children's theater followed in 2005 . In 2010 there were further renovations of the main theater auditorium. The complex also includes bars and restaurants. The Theater Royal also hosts various annual events such as the Family Theater Festival and the Shakespeare Unplugged Festival .

history

The original entrance from Beauford Square. The new train system from 1980 can be seen on the right above the facade

construction

The Old Orchard Street Theater, which was replaced by the Theater Royal, was the first theater outside London to have the Royal Patent , which was awarded in 1768 and taken over by the new theater. The old theater was rededicated to a church after four years of vacancy and has housed a Masonic lodge since 1866 . A location was sought for the new theater from 1802 until a suitable location was finally found in 1804. The financing came through a tontine, a financing which was named in France in 1653 after the Neapolitan banker Lorenzo de Tonti . She combined the benefits of an annuity with a lottery. Each participant paid a certain amount into the fund and then received his annuity from it. As soon as the participant dies, the other contributors receive their shares, so that a higher annuity was made possible for everyone. When the last participant died, the fund was dissolved. The £ 200 units sold out quickly. The Crown Prince, later George IV , and his brother Prince Friedrich August were among the draftsmen of the papers. A similar process has been used previously to fund the construction of the Bath Assembly Rooms .

The exterior of the building, with arches, pilasters , garlands and ornaments as seen from Beauford Square, was designed by George Dance the Younger , who also designed parts of the interior. The structures of the house were designed by local architect John Palmer. The ceiling was provided with paneling from an old building near Fonthill Abbey and artistically designed by the Italian painter Andrea Casali . The work was donated by the politician Paul Cobb Methuen ( MP ). When gas lighting was to be installed in 1827, there was fear of damage to the works of art and they were brought to the country house in Dyrham Park in ( South Gloucestershire ).

It opened on October 12, 1805 with a production of Shakespeare's Richard III. However, since no well-known actors and draft horses were used, the performance was not a great success. Nevertheless, the theater gained a good reputation over the years under the direction of William Wyatt Dimonds . The performances of that time featured child stars like Master Betty and Clara Fisher or seasoned London actors like Dorothea Jordan , William Macready and Edmund Kean . In addition to Shakespeare and other serious dramas, pieces of opera and comedy were also produced. Joseph Grimaldi played the clown in the English pantomime Mother Goose in November 1815 .

The auditorium during a British Association meeting . First published in the Illustrated London News

There was a change in ownership and management of the theater between the 1810s and 1850s. This coincided with the resurgence of the Puritans and Bath's loss of importance. Declining income met higher fee demands from the London actors. This resulted in the theater falling into financial difficulties and a phase of downturn. Things only got better when the owner's son-in-law, Mrs. Macready, James Henry Chute, took over the business. Until then he was head of the Bath Assembly Rooms.

Fire and reconstruction

On April 18, 1862, a great fire destroyed the entire interior including the stage, scenery, cloakroom and library. Only the outer walls were preserved. A new society was formed to rebuild the theater. A competition for the best designs was announced. From this Charles John Phipps emerged as the winner and the reconstruction took place immediately. A new entrance on Sawclose Street was also implemented. A portal was incorporated here, which was previously installed in a house of the Bather bon vivant Beau Nash and was once designed by Thomas Greenaway. Nikolaus Pevsner criticized the deepening of the window frames, friezes and volutes of the door arches as “characteristically exaggerated” and referred to John Wood the Elder and his consideration of “lush ornamentation”, which is more typical of a bricklayer than an architect. Chute remained the theater director and engaged Charles Kean and Ellen Terry for the opening event on March 3, 1863 for the play A Midsummer Night's Dream

Initially, the reopened theater struggled to become profitable despite appearances by stars like Henry Irving . In 1885 William Lewis took over the lease and in 1892 his son Egbert followed . They restored the theater in 1892 and now drew an additional audience with their melodramas and comedies and also performed operas and other crowd-pullers.

20th century

In 1902 the theater closed in order to carry out extensive structural changes. This happened against the background of the regulations of the Royal Charter . The work included a new staircase, the installation of electrical lighting, a new iron curtain and radiators throughout the auditorium. In 1905, in the 100th year since it opened, an ensemble led by Frank Benson performed various plays of Shakespeare.

In 1914, the Worcester impresario Arthur Carlton took over the business. As he was responsible for 14 theaters at the time, he delegated the on-site tasks to Mrs. D. Valantine Munro . The theater continued to be used during the First World War. In 1916, Sarah Bernhardt portrayed a wounded French soldier in Du Théâtre au Champ d'Honneur . In the 1920s, there were performances by the Russian ballerina Anna Pawlowna Pawlowa and Mrs. Patrick Campbell . During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the theater was naturally not very profitable and closed for six months. In 1938 the house was taken over by Reg Maddox . However, the time of the Second World War did not particularly affect the theater. Stars on stage were u. a. Donald Wolfit , Irene Vanbrugh, John Gielgud and Sybil Thorndike . In the post-war years, new media such as cinema and television took the audience away from the theater. At the end of the 1960s, unsuccessful proposals were made for a foundation to manage the theater. In the 1970s, shares in the owner company were bought by property developer Charles Ware, who sold them to Charles Clarke , a Bristol attorney . Clarke was responsible for the renovation of the building, but since profits were still small, he sold it in 1976 to Louis I. Michaels , director of the Theater Royal Haymarket in London.

In March 1979 the dilapidated theater was bought for £ 155,000 from a trust led by engineer and arts patron Jeremy Fry . In the following year, an appeal for donations was launched to enable the renovation and modernization of the stage technology. New traverses for lighting fixtures and a higher pulling system were to be installed so that larger tour operators such as the Royal National Theater could rent the stage. The total estimated cost was £ 3.5 million, of which £ 1.8 million was considered material to reopen the theater. There were monetary and in-kind donations from the city budget, the Arts Council England, the Bath Preservation Trust, the Leche Trust, the Historic buildings council, the Manifold Trust, the South-West Stonecleaning and the Restoration Company and many individual donors. However, since not the entire amount could be financed purely through these donations, loans had to be taken out from the financing companies Bristol & West and Lombard North Central . The theater was then able to reopen on November 30, 1982. The opening performance was A Midsummer Night's Dream , with the National Theater ensemble under the direction of Paul Scofield . Princess Margare attended the opening .

Renovation 2010

The theater 2015

In October 2009 the 2010 Refurbishment Appeal was announced by the royal patroness of the theater, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall . Money was to be raised to maintain and renovate the 200 year old building. It should also meet the demands of the modern audience of the 21st century. The three million pound redesign resulted in a larger foyer, improved elevators, handicapped access to the stalls and the upper tiers, complete renovation of the bars and the establishment of the Jeremy Fry Bar in the basement of the directly adjacent The Garrick's Head pub , as well as the redesign of the Auditorium. Technical improvements can be found in the main building's stage, rewiring and lighting systems throughout the building, fire alarms and air conditioning. There was also a desire for better energy efficiency and a 30% reduction in the ecological footprint . Architects were hired from Fielden Clegg Bradley Studios and the construction company Midas Group undertook the construction work with a value of two million pounds.

The construction work was all on schedule and so the theater was able to reopen on September 8, 2010. The opening ceremony began with the specially produced piece The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan , which is set in old Bath. In 2011 the theater received the British Construction Industry Award Conservation Award.

The theater is said to be haunted by ghosts . Including the Gray Lady , who is said to be an actress from a long past century. She was seen watching theater productions from inside the Gray Lady box. When it disappears, there will always be a scent of jasmine in the air.

Architecture and special features

The Garrick's Head on St John's Close

The theater, along with the neighboring Garrick's Head Pub, belongs to the Grade II group and is seen as a prime example of Georgian architecture . The oldest part of the building is Garrick's Head on St John's Close, a former pub . The three-storey building with a basement (now a bar) has a hipped roof and a partially balustrated perimeter.

Above the door is a bust of David Garrick , made in 1831 by Lucius Gahagan . The Beauford Square side of the building, designed by George Dance the Younger , has five yokes and is crowned by a frieze adorned with comic and tragic muses . The central door was once the main entrance to the pit and the galleries. At today's main entrance on the east side, which leads to Sawclose Street, four of the original yokes were replaced by a round arch. The 900-seat auditorium has levels of elaborate plaster of paris with red and gilded decoration and a ceiling with trompe-l'oeil and a glittering chandelier. It has three galleries in a horseshoe arrangement supported by cast iron pillars.

There are restaurants in the theater where you can eat before and after the performances. There are also rooms that can be rented for events, including civil weddings and wedding celebrations.

In 2017, the sawclose area between today's Theater Royal and the former Bluecoat School (now an apartment block) was converted into a pedestrian zone or a restricted- traffic zone .

The Ustinov Studio

The front of the Ustinov Studio

In 1997 a studio stage was added to the rear of the Theater Royal (on Monmouth Street), named after the actor Peter Ustinov . At the front of the building is a bronze figure of his son Igor Ustinov . It is called Hopefully (hopefully). Originally the 150-seat theater was intended as a space for young theater and small touring productions, but it quickly expanded its offering to include classical concerts, stand-up comedy (with stars like Bill Bailey , Stewart Lee or Lucy Porter) and its own small ones Productions. In order to meet the technical requirements of these productions, the entire year 2007 was used to upgrade the backstage areas and technical facilities, the foyer, the bar and the auditorium. The Ustinov Studio then reopened in February 2008 with the in-house production Breakfast With Mugabe with the actor Joseph Marcell u. a.

In 2015 the studio theater was directed by Laurence Boswell . In 2012 there was an American season in the Ustinov Studio. Sarah Ruhls In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) was the winner of the UK Theater Awards 2012 (Best New Play ) and was nominated for three Tony Awards . The Ustinov Studio was also nominated for the prestigious Empty Space ... Peter Brook Award 2012. Dominic Cavendish of The Daily Telegraph praised the venue as "the ever-bubbling spring of wonder" at the awards ceremony. The Ustinov also received its second consecutive nomination for the 2013 Awards.

In autumn 2013 the Ustinov Studio presented The Spanish Golden Age Season with three new translations of rarely performed works. This included the tragedy Punishment without Revenge and the romantic comedies Don Gil of the Green Breeches and A Lady of Little Sense (La dama boba) , which were performed between September and December 2013 with the same ten actors. This was later repeated at London's West End Arcola Theater .

In the summer of 2014 the Ustinov presented the new comedy Bad Jews , and in November of the same year a black comedy by Florian Zeller called 'The Father' with Kenneth Cranham in the lead role. Both pieces achieved great national and international success in the following two years. Kenneth Cranham won the Olivier Award for Best Actor 2016.

The Egg

The front doors of the Egg

In 2005 another new theater opened behind the Theater Royal. The Egg, which shows professional theater productions for children and their families, accompanied by workshops and youth theater productions. It includes a café, which is also used for family events or children's art events.

Performances

In addition to the weekly touring guest performances, which make up the bulk of the program, the Theater Royal hosts several annual events, including the Family Theater Festival and the Shakespeare Unplugged Festival . Director Peter Hall's drama series was held at the Theater Royal from 2003 to 2011. Many theater productions started at the Theater Royal before they were officially presented in London.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Theater Royal (ii) (Bath) . Theaters Trust. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  2. ^ History . Theater Royal. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "The Theater Royal at Bath" by William Lowndes, 1881
  4. ^ Rachel Knowles: The Upper Assembly Rooms, Bath . Regency History. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  5. ^ "Georgian Summer", David Gadd, 1971
  6. ^ Theater Royal (ii) (Bath) . Theater Trust. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  7. ^ Harris p. 17
  8. ^ Immortality presiding over the arts . National Trust. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  9. ^ The Personification of History Writing on the Back of Time . Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  10. ↑ "The Oxford Handbook of the Georgian Theater 1737-1832" by Julia Swindells, 2014
  11. ^ Destruction of Bath Theater . In: Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette , April 24, 1862. Retrieved June 13, 2019. 
  12. ↑ 1805–2012 . Theater Royal. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  13. ^ "Portrait of Bath" by John Haddon, 1982
  14. ↑ a b c Theater Royal and former Garrick's Head Public House
  15. ↑ Theater Royal on the pages of Historic England
  16. ^ Bath - Beau Nash's Houses . Astoft. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  17. ^ "Shakespeare in the Nineteenth Century" by Gail Marshall, 2012
  18. ↑ Ellen Terry (1847-1928) . Stage Beauty. Retrieved June 13, 2019.
  19. ↑ Jeremy Fry . In: The Telegraph , July 20, 2005. Retrieved October 26, 2015. 
  20. ↑ Jeremy Fry: Obituary . In: The Independent , July 27, 2005. Archived from the original on July 11, 2010. 
  21. ^ Royal launch for theater appeal . In: Bath Chronicle . Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  22. ^ Theater Royal Bath to be revamped . The Stage. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  23. ^ Bath Theater Royal to reopen the following £ 3 m upgrade , BBC. September 7, 2010. Accessed June 14, 2019. 
  24. ↑ Refurbishment plans move a step closer as Midas is contracted to work on Bath's historic theater . Theater Royal. Retrieved on November 12, 2010 Template: dead link /! ... nourl ( page no longer available )
  25. ↑ Midas wins refurbishment £ 2 m contract for Bath's historic theater . Midas. Retrieved September 10, 2010.
  26. ↑ Theater Royal main house shuts for £ 3m facelift . In: Bath Chronicle . Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  27. ↑ Winners 2011 . 2011. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  28. ↑ The Gray Lady . Theater Royal. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  29. ^ Garrick's Head Public House & Theater Royal . In: Images of England . English Heritage. Archived from the original on October 12, 2012. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  30. ↑ Swapnil Srivastava: Georgian Architecture . Buzzle. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  31. ↑ Bill Addis, Derek Walker: Happold: The Confidence to Build . Taylor & Francis, 2005, ISBN 9781135806132 , p. 125.
  32. ^ Theater Royal Bath Awards Lindley Heritage £ 4m Catering Contract . Centerplate. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  33. ↑ £ 2 million Saw Close development will last nine months and bring road closures . In: Bath Chronicle , May 19, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2019. 
  34. ^ Theater Royal (ii) (Bath) . The Theaters Trust. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  35. ↑ "Pevsner Architectural Guides: Bath" by Michael Forsyth, 2003
  36. ^ Mugabe Heads to Bath . British Theater Guide. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  37. ^ In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play . London Theater. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  38. ↑ Lindsay Champion: Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) Slated For West End Transfer . Theatre.com. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  39. ↑ Finborough wins 2012 Peter Brook Empty Space Award . Whats On Stage. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  40. ^ Double award nomination for the Ustinov Studio . Theater Bath. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  41. ↑ Spanish Golden Age Season . Arcola Theater. Archived from the original on November 9, 2013. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  42. ↑ Bad Jews . Theater Royal. Retrieved May 18, 2016.
  43. ↑ The Father, Theater Royal Bath, review: 'losing the plot is the point' . In: Telegraph , November 2, 2014. Retrieved May 18, 2016. 
  44. ↑ Charlotte Marshall: Kenneth Cranham Wins Best Actor Olivier . Official London Theater. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  45. ^ Theater Royal Bath . Bath Festival. Retrieved July 11, 2019.
  46. ^ Ian Shuttleworth: The Peter Hall Company at Theater Royal Bath . In: Financial Times , July 18, 2009. Retrieved June 14, 2019. 
  47. ^ Bath Opens Rivals & Master Class Pre-West End . Whats On Stage. Retrieved June 14, 2019.

literature

Web links

Commons : Theater Royal (Bath)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files