Royal National Theater

The National Theater on southern bank, in the district of Lambeth to London, is immediately in the east of the southern end of the bridge of Waterloo. The building of the National Theater was drawn by the Architecte Sir Denys Lasdun and its rooms opened separately between 1976 and 1977. Since 1963, before the company is not installed definitively on southern bank, the National Theater Compagny , as it was usually called, had its districts in the Old Vic Theater on Waterloo Road .

The honorary title of Royal was added in 1988 after a campaign initiated by max Rayne, the president of the National Theater , to mark the twenty-fifth birthday of the inauguration of the company (and the proper departure of Rayne). The director of the theater, Richard Eyre, was opposite there because it feared that the productions become a little too much “as it is necessary”. The addition was gummed little by little (but not in an official way) when Rayne left in retirement. Continuous majority of English amateurs of theater to refer to the company and its walls under the name of National The Theater , when it is not quite simply The National .

The National Theater present of the highly varied programs, which include/understand Shakespeare and the other traditional ones, new parts in a policy of support of the contemporary authors, but also of the resumptions of great classics of musical comedies.

The building

The building of the National Theater contains three distinct rooms:
  • the Olivier Theater (of the name of its first artistic director, Laurence Olivier) is the principal room, and also largest. Its plan takes again that of the ancient theater of Épidaure; the scene is opened and the steps laid out in range can accommodate 1  160  people. It is in this room that the Drum Revolve is (the rotary table); a particular plate, stuffed technology, and which can go down eight meters. The edges of the scene can rotate, and two plates of a capacity of 10 tons facilitate the changes of scenery.
  • the Lyttelton Theater (of the name of Olivier Lyttelton, the first president of the theater) has a arched Avant-scène and can accommodate 890 people.
  • the Cottesloe Theater (of the name of Lord Cottesloe, president of the theatrical scene of southern bank) is a small flexible auditorium, drawn by Ian Mackintosh. According to the provision of the seats it can accommodate to 400 people.

The square along bank in the open air sees representations being held the summer months. The terraces and the hearths of the theatrical complex were also the place of experimental performances in situation.

The hearths of the National Theater are opened to the public where it can find there a bookstore specialized in the theatrical art, of the restaurants, the bars and the places of exposure. In day of the visits of the slides are organized, as well as concerts of music in the hearth every evening as from 6 a.m., before the beginning of the representations.

The style of the building of the National Theater was described per Mark Girouard at the time of its opening like a “esthetics of broken forms”. Criticisms architectural were shared during its construction. Even the flatterer of the modern Movement as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner found the treatment brutalist intern and external a little too radical. More famous of the prince Charles heard in 1988 describing was the word the building: “the most clever means to build a nuclear plant into full London without any objection”.

In spite of the controversies, the theater accepted in 1994 a Grade II in the list of the listed monuments of the United Kingdom. Though the theater appears the prototype of the Brutalisme in England, the building was revalued since the death of Ladsun, bringing it much more closer to work of a Le Corbusier that monumental buildings of the Sixties such those of Paul Rudolf. Balance refined between the horizontal and vertical elements of the building of Lasdun contrasts harmoniously with the masses of the adjacent buildings like the Hayward Gallery and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Today the National Theater carries out the exploit to be at the same time the London building more appreciated and more hated in the opinion polls. A recent work of illumination, in particular volumes of the clotheshangers, met a great success: it is one of the many artistically happy answers which the building offers.

Artistic directors

External bonds

  • Official website
  • The official Royal National Theater print website containing over 700 posters from the NT Files
  • Intelligent Giving charity profiles off The National Theater

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