National Theatre 18th September

National theatre:

 Friday the 18th of September we went on a trip to the National Theatre for a tour backstage. We had to wear orange reflective jackets before we started the tour. We entered the Olivier Theatre, which was opened in 1963. At first I was so amazed at the lay out of the building. We were so high up, but I was shocked by how much effort and requirements the Theatre needed. Going into making the Olivier is great because every aspect wasn't rushed at all. The peripheral vision was 118 degrees which is the average a human eye could see from a stand still point. This was set so the audience is seen by the actor; this makes it less patronizing when performing as you can see all your audience in front of you. There is a total of I believe just over 1160 seats made in the style of a Greek Theatre at Epidaurus with an open stage and fan shaped auditorium. The Theatre was named after the first director of the National called Laurence Olivier Olivier and is also the largest out of the three theatres. We were told the temporary theatre will be taken down in 2017. Under the stage there is a massive revolving drum, which is a wopping 5 storeys high. It is very technical and is run from computers, a click of a button can make objects suddenly disappear from under the stage. The set is moved every 4 days for a new play and is also moved into the storage space behind. Original Greek Theatres were made entirely out of stone and as a result of a natural science it turns out that you could drop a pin and it would still echo. In order to recreate that experience over the seats at about 4 metres are these sound boards made to reflect the actor’s voice back so the performers can be heard all around the theatre and were put in random angles on purpose. The Olivier was made slanted so the sound boards were placed on the ceiling to amplify the noise from the stage. We then taken to the actors' dressing rooms  and then went downstairs to see the storage place in which the set would go. Was a treat to be able to see the props on the prop table and the lady explained to us how it takes a day to change the whole set which explained alot.
Afterwards we visited the Lyttelton Theatre which was more traditional rather than modern and everything was done by men and workers rather than electronic technology. We were informed in the times before people bought the most expensive tickets which was the box on the side of the stage so they can dress up and have people view them and envy them. Then Lyttelton decided to not add the box in because the focus should be on the performance and not the more classy people. The Theatre wasn't planned in advance, infact it was a rough sketch decided a week before creating it. As the audience is directly in front of the stage it is a Contemporary Proscenium Theatre.