The second stage of Stratford's RSC theatres
Arts Editor Terry Grimley looks at the transformation of the RSC’s theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon.
If you’ve been in Stratford-upon-Avon lately, the chances are you have been impressed by progress on the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.
The forbidding, largely blank brick wall which faced the town for 70 years is now made more friendly by a glazed foyer running its full length, while the tower which will double as a lift shaft and a significant new viewpoint for Stratford seems so natural a part of the building’s overall composition that you wonder why it wasn’t included in Elisabeth Scott’s original design (there was one in the previous Victorian theatre which was lost in the fire of 1926).
In fact, from the outside the £112.8 million transformation of the RSC’s Stratford theatres – the project is creating a much stronger link than previously existed between the main house and the Swan – seems pretty much complete.
But appearances can be deceptive, as project director Peter Wilson points out.
“We’ve reached the point where the outside envelope of the building is just about complete, which is when people think we’ve finished,” he says.
“But actually that’s the beginning of a very hard year’s work putting all the pipes and wires in place. In a theatre there are probably more of those than in any other type of building except a power station. Most of the work goes into the last year.”
The tower is expected to become a major tourist attraction, offering views past Holy Trinity Church to the Vale of Evesham. It has a concrete core but the structure around it is solid brick: “Like something by Brunel,” says Peter proudly.
This and the foyer were key elements in the concept brought to the building by architects Bennetts Associates. The Swan, created in the 1980s within the surviving fragment of the original 1879 theatre, has always been a self-contained operation, accessed at the far end of the complex from the main house. Now both theatres will share an entrance and front-of-house facilities for the first time.
“The 1879 theatre faces up-river because you were most likely to have come to visit Shakespeare’s grave and the main station was in the old town,” Peter Wilson explains as we stand in the new foyer. The 1930s theatre faces the other way because of road traffic. So in the 1980s when the Swan was built in the shell of the old theatre we had two theatres back-to- back.
“From the entrance you can go into the theatre, or across to the river with its bars and cafes, or up in the lift. This used to be the back of the theatre. If you had high-quality gardens and the river on the other side this had to be the back, but it’s also the side that faces the town.”
A new square will be added on this side, while on the opposite, river frontage the building has been stripped back to its original appearance with the removal of numerous extensions.
