Space craft ... the new temporary Courtyard Theatre
Hanging, said Dr Johnson, concentrates the mind wonderfully. So too does an urgent deadline; and not least in theatre architecture. The latest example is the RSC's new Courtyard Theatre designed to fill the four-year gap while Stratford's main house is being reconstructed. Critics were given a sneak preview this week; and the general feeling was that the Courtyard, which has been quickly built in 11 months and is destined to be dismantled in 2010, is bit of a smasher.
This prompted a heretical thought: that the best theatres aren't always those over which architects have laboured long and hard. Two examples come quickly to mind. Back in 1971 the Young Vic was run up rapidly as a temporary, breeze-block structure: out of an old Victorian butcher's shop in Waterloo's The Cut a rough-hewn space was created with a built-in magic that endured for over three decades. And when Manchester's Royal Exchange was tragically hit by an IRA bomb in 1996, the company quickly moved into a mobile theatre sited in Upper Campfield Market. And, while we were all delighted when the Royal Exchange re-opened, there was an extraordinary buzz and intimacy about its ephemeral replacement.
In fact, it was the late Michael Elliott, one of the pioneering directors behind the Royal Exchange, who first talked to me back in the 1970s about the follies of building for posterity. The Victorians thought we'd always want to sit in serried ranks before a proscenium-arch: as a result, we were saddled with a lot of outdated buildings. In the modern age, we'd decided that aprons, thrusts and forestages were the thing. But how, asked Elliott, did we know that was what future generations would want?
His argument was that theatres should ideally have a built-in obsolescence. And the present age's distrust of formal buildings and hunger for "found" spaces- everything from the caverns below London Bridge station to old warehouses, markets and railway termini - suggests Elliott had a point.
That's what makes the Courtyard so fascinating. Admittedly Ian Ritchie's building is being seen as a dry run for the RSC's future Stratford home. But it's not, in the graphic words of RSC director Michael Boyd, "a super-bendy, bells-and-whistles, multi-purpose building." It's a provisional space to fill an expressive need. If it works, well and good. If it has flaws, they can be rectified.
I also noticed a faint gleam in the management's eye when it was suggested it might eventually be moved, lock, stock and barrel, to give the RSC a London base; or at least provide a prototype. Whether or not that happens, it certainly makes one think about the perils of second-guessing the future. A famous Spanish dramatist - I forget who - once said that all you needed for theatre was "a board, two planks and a passion." Peter Brook said an empty space was by itself enough. Well, the Courtyard is a bit more than that. But, in the end, it's simply a 1,000-seat theatre in a "rusty box." In its transience lies its excitement.
