SITE SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE

Since we are all going to be performing in and around the library, I felt it only natural to write something about books. Not just what we expect from a book, but also inclusion from what we have talked about in seminars where we questioned: What is a book?

So what do we expect from a book? Many pages together to form a novel, or a collection of stories or poems, or something informative. As much as someone may want to avoid books because they don’t like reading, it is hard to avoid them as we grow up with them, we learn from them in school and they can help to shape who we are. In fact, most of us will have had one when we were babies or toddlers and had them read to us from our parents. But also at this early age, they can help us to talk and read, so books are important to us as we grow up.

Books not only help to shape who we are as we grow up, but as we have grown up, we read more and more and learn more and more from the books we read. Even from fictional books we read as teens, the books we class as teen books, can help us understand things socially, help us find ourselves at a time in our lives when we really need to find out who we are. So for me, books are incredibly important to us as humans, so that we can develop and learn.

However, if we look at books from an academic perspective, then they help us learn, but in a completely different way. They help us have an understanding of the wider world and help us form an opinion on matters we may learn about, for example, from a personal perspective on academic learning, I found this in the first lecture for another module. We were told about the politics of teaching and how the arts were basically getting kicked out, and this made me form an opinion of a matter I previously had very little knowledge of.

But as we, as a group, have explored in seminars, books aren’t just something we read, they aren’t just the stereotypical object we fine in libraries or Waterstones, but could be a plastic food box filled with marshmallows and strawberries and inspiring quotes. They can be something we listen to, or even a plastic bottle filled with facts. It’s as if you could do anything and still call it a book as a book, seemingly, could be anything. Literally anything.

Andrew Brooks

In Juliet Rufford’s book, the introduction makes some valid points but, also some interesting points too that show the progression of architecture through the different periods of drama: early Greek theatre, the Restoration period and the modern era of theatres and the architectures influence over theatre.

Rufford notes that the change in architecture of theatres had a link to the change in the audience, which could ultimately change what happens on the stage. This can be seen from ‘the huge size of the ancient Greek amphitheatre [that] demanded large gestural acting.’ (Rufford, 2015, 3) In this period of time, the audiences would be huge and they attended open aired theatres, therefore the actors had to project much more, this is also the reason for the larger gestures on stage. However, Elizabethan theatres, by way of contrast, were much smaller, and from the Globe theatre to the Theatre Drury Lane, there were changes that included going from open aired theatres to indoor theatres, mostly stood to everyone being sat and natural lighting to artificial lighting.

From open aired theatres to the indoor theatres, the architecture of the theatre influences the acting and theatricality because the actors didn’t have to project their voices as much, because their voices aren’t disappearing into the open air. Therefore, the newer architecture of the indoor theatres forced the audience to listen, even if in the Restoration period the audience openly criticised the actors on stage during the performance, but this gave way to the parameters of the contemporary theatres we expect to see today.

‘But perhaps the most significant change of all was that the auditorium lights were turned down… [and]…in the dark, the sights and sounds of the auditorium were stilled.’ (Rufford, 2015, 6) This change in 1876 by Richard Wagner for his Bayreuther Festspielhaus was a game changer in how architecture influenced the way people acted at the theatre. In the Restoration period, the stage and audience were lit in equal lighting because of a lack of technology, although it was cutting edge for its era. Despite the fact no one in the audience would have known to be quiet when the lights went down, it seemed as though it was a natural thing to do, and this was a clear paving stone for what we now expect to see and be a part of in a theatre surrounding.

The technology and the change in design of the theatres have shown how the change in architecture has had a major influence on the expectations from what happens on the stage and the whole theatre experience.

Rufford, J. (2015) Theatre & Architecture. London: Palgrave.

Andrew Brooks