Behind the scenes

Summary

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is currently undergoing a radical transformation. Described in company publicity as 'one of the world's most iconic theatrical sites', the theatre closed in 2007 for refurbishment, to reopen in 2010 as, it is hoped, 'the best theatre for Shakespeare in the world'. The 1930s cinema-style auditorium reviled by generations of its users has been demolished, to be replaced by what is described by the Royal Shakespeare Company's Artistic Director Michael Boyd as 'a theatre which celebrates interaction. . . a bold, thrust-stage, one-room auditorium - a modern take on the theatres of Shakespeare's day'. One of the distinctive elements of this latest attempt to reshape the conditions of Shakespearean performance is indicated by Boyd's description of the company's temporary replacement and prototype for the new theatre, the Courtyard, as 'a meeting place between audience and actors . . . where we can make some kind of fragile consensus together'. Summoning an egalitarian and inclusive ethos long associated with thrust stages, as well as current discourses of conflict resolution, the remark suggests that getting physically closer to Shakespeare in Stratford confers benefits beyond the theatrical: the Courtyard stage, and its permanent successor, are envisaged as not only neo-Elizabethan performance spaces but also as forums for creative dialogue, collective problem-solving and democratic participation. This is not new, in that the open stage has been subject to such a quasi-political inflection throughout the entire history of theatrical modernism; what is relatively unusual about Boyd's concern for consensus-building is that it emerges from a specific, and indeed acutely sensitive, local context.