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An age old problem: Which house is the right house?

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The city of Sydney needs a new theatre.

TheatreIn fact the city of Sydney needs several new theatres – and while it’s a fact that appears known, it remains something about which little is being done. Decades after the period where well over a dozen 1000+ seater theatres and picture palaces stood between Her Majesty’s in Haymarket and the State on Market Street, and twenty-five years beyond the day when the beautiful (and sorely missed) Regent Theatre on George and Bathurst was demolished, we are badly in need of a new 1,200 seater theatre. Add to that the obvious demand for theatres (plural!) that seat somewhere around the 500 mark, AND the need for a main-stage Repertory music theatre company (similar to what Melbourne have in The Production Company) and there you have our cultural woes clearly defined. Or so I will claim them to be.

But even as we search for new houses to embody the lyrics of Sondheim and give residency to the ghostly voices of Shakespeare and the snap and crackle of Williams and Wilde and Kushner, in England last week, archaeologists announced dazzling evidence that the quest for the right house for your show truly has been on-going.

A two-thousand year old Roman amphitheatre has been uncovered in Faversham, Kent. The constant provision of “bread and circuses” is a well-known element of life in the ancient Roman world. And it remains in memoriam: represented in bricks and mortar across northern Europe – there are over 150, some still in use! But this is the first discovery of its kind, and size, in the UK.

Don’t let the word amphitheatre fool you. This was no mere Shakespeare in the park. The Faversham auditorium was 65 metres in diameter and sat up to 12,000 people! Its stage possesses holes and channels thought to be there to allow flooding for aquatic displays. Oh yes – the Romans new how to put on a show. It’s known that some Roman theatres were equipped with revolving stages and cranes specifically designed to hoist performers skyward! Two thousand years ago they could have staged Wicked for 12,000 people and not batted an eyelid!

It’s incredible to think that even then, people queued up to see the latest arena spectacular in the way I plan on queuing (this year? Next year?) for Jesus Christ Superstar! And that natural acoustics provided the amplification – and today All-Phones Arena can’t even get the sound right for a Mariah Carey concert!

It’s genuinely mind-blowing to think that even then people must have auditioned for shows – dreamed about playing in the great arenas and worried about what would happen when the show closed until the next casting call.

While Faversham may be a long way from the Sydney Opera House, and its Roman arena shows far removed from the pyrotechnics of ‘Defying Gravity’ and ‘Gethsemene’, it’s still good to have a reminder now and then that the culture of the theatre (and everything that comes with it) truly has been part of life for time immemorial. And while we can never truly know what shows at Faversham were like, it was a theatre – even two thousand years later that speaks for itself.

With this sentiment of the enduring power, passion and artistry that theatres embody, Sydney – we could do with a few new ones! And while I’m asking, a revival of Gypsy also couldn’t hurt! Caroline O’Connor could play Momma Rose… or maybe Debra Byrne? Either way, get cracking! We have a rich and glorious history to uphold!

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  • Stephan Holmes

    This article is spot on.
    If theatre, in all its forms, is to flourish in the harbourside city we are in desperate need of theatres of the size alluded too.
    However, what do we do to get them? I’ve written to politicians, arts organisations and the City of Sydney. The Barrangarroo site lends itself to such a theatre. Surely the much embraced Packer gambling palace could be compelled to contain a lyric theatre.
    I often think we need someone of the stature of a Paul Keating or Leo Schofield to lobby governments and councils to get such theatres built. I know I would be more than willing to provide any backroom assistance if such a public pressure group was established.
    Thank you for raising the issue and let’s hope we can act upon your many valid suggestions.

  • Greg Vale

    What a wonderful article. The best place to see the opera, ballet, musical or an outdoor concert in an outdoor permanent music bowl is MELBOURNE. They’ve got the lot down there. An opera house that works, 4 huge lyric theatres all beautifully restored, The 60 year old Myer music bowl, which anyone can hire at any time of the year, rather than wait for Sydney to pitch the tent like structure in the Domain once a year for a few short weeks.. This is tragic. We have spent zillions on sporting venues over the past 20 years .Randwick race course and the SCG are creating huge new grandstands for their patrons as I write, but we can’t even squeeze our National opera ballet and orchestras into our “Opera House”

    What a tragedy that the opera and ballet companies have to modify their sets to squeeze them into the Sydney venue. Let alone the conditions the porr orchestra has to endure in the pit. Whereas Melbourne, Brisbane and Melbourne have the perfect venues to accomodate such companies.

    Let’s hope that plans are “in the wings” to create much needed change

    Greg Vale

    .