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CHAPTER VII
THEATRE DECORATION
THE architecture of anything is, after all, more important than its decoration. Whether it be a candy box or a cathedral the ornamentation which the decorator may add cannot avail it much if its structure is unsound or unbeautiful. Every decent decorator will cheerfully admit that the architect's job is more fundamental than his own, which is not at all to say that the architect can do the decorator's job better than the decorator himself. This importance of architecture is particularly borne out in the field of theatre building, and the vast improvement that has taken place in theatres here and abroad during the past generation is, of course, more importantly an improvement in the buildings themselves than in their color schemes, although these, too, are much better than they used to be. But the great and deep changes in theatres have been structural.
We have done away with the ugly and annoying columns which used to support the balcony and which made mild contortionists of half the sitters in the rear rows of the orchestra. The use of steel beams has enabled us to swing our balconies so that the stage is visible at least from the rear rows below them. The reshaping of the auditorium has also made the stage visible from its side seats, and the boxes, which used
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to be merely places for exhibiting wearing apparel and jewels, have now become fairly satisfactory positions for viewing a play, especially since they are constructed at varying heights, so that no two boxes are on exactly the same level. The acoustics, of course, have been enormously improved, and this important scientific question has been given some of the study which it should have had twenty years ago.
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