Sketches of thoughts
collection of topics extracted from the ongoing theoretical research on theatre, play and the role of Fellner & Helmer in accommodating space for future narratives
texts: Loredana STASISIN
Temporal form, spatial practice and the culture of the built
Theatre, as a performative art, is usually associated with fiction, improvisation and temporarity. In order to exist, the theatre needs a place. But what kind of place, and what kind of relationship with the place and the environmental surroundings? Classified as an applied science, architecture is perceived as a solid construct, deeply anchored in the complex reality of the urban dynamics for a long-term static presence. At the first sight, the two, the performance and the built structure, seem to have lives at the opposite ends of the spatial construct. However, the architectural shape, transforms over the years, naturally or through various contextual dynamics. From this perspective, it is a living shape, a performative act stretched over a long period of time. It is a series of articulated thoughts brought together in an aesthetically crafted composition. As it is the case with the performative art. As such, the common ground becomes the culture of the built. So, how to properly build the right place for the right theatrical performance?
One of the few Fellner & Helmer theatres preserving the original stage mechanisms up to this date is in Cluj-Napoca [RO]. The performances bringing to life the one century old constructed frame balanced their path throughout the time and found a way to coexist as a coherent form of togetherness.
In a more dynamic setting, the VIG [HU] theatre stands as a progressive model of coexistence, where both, the building and the performative art, evolved and constantly adapted to the newness of the time, without loosing the track of the original act.
In October, 2023, ‘The Hague’ by Sasha Denisova, a satire questioning ethical perspectives over the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is played in Sofia, in a house that gracefully survived a great fire, bombing and political repression... or, when theatre is more than a frame for a show to just enjoy.
A practice of social, economic and political constructs
“Examine the origins - social, political, philosophical and theatrical - of the ethical frameworks with which most people in the modern Western world are most familiar. These are the ethical frameworks that take shape when individuals and the societies they form are no longer subjugated to ethical codes imposed from outside or above: by kings or gods. In this modern period the theatre participates in a process of managing the way people think about their relationship with one another and their potential for creating societies in which everyone can enjoy freedom as well as social solidarity”
by Nicholas Ridout - Theatre & ethics, Red Globe Press, 2009, p. 7
In 1965, we lost the Fellner & Helmer National Theatre in Budapest in the context of political disagreements. Almost one century before, a different political context led to the construction of the inherited monument. Yet again, in the early 2000s, a new political framework made sure that the memory of this sensitive past is preserved in a symbolic shape, in front of the new National Theatre.
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After being significantly destructed by a second fire, the Palace of Culture in Timisoara had the auditorium and the main facade rebuilt between 1923-1936 under the signature style of the arch. Duiliu Marcu, representing not only the aesthetic values of those times but a certain political direction as well.
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In Graz, during the WWII bombing, the portico of the main facade was lost. Rebuilding it or keeping visible the trac of the wound remains an intensely debated topic even today.
Theatre, modernity & human subjectivity
In Europe, the modernity of the latest part of the XIXth century brought along the rise of the city as the dominant political and social force. The electricity, the railway travel, mass production, communication, cinema, they were part of the same process, as the reconfiguration of social relationships, religious beliefs and moral values. A new kind of thinking became visible not only in the weaving of the urban fabric, interconnecting the traces of the past with the dynamic perspective of the future, but in the thematics and the ambitions of performative arts as well.
The theatre of the late XIXth century - beginning of the XXth evolved in the context of political power, social prestige and economic success. Some of these values surpassed the challenges of time and took on a shape of their own.
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Such is the case of the National Theatre in Zagreb, where the idea of prestige is so deeply embedded in the local culture as, recently, gave us a state of the art main curtain that was specially fabricated to reproduce historically accurate original details, with handmade fringes and wine red velvet.
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The same type of care for local prestige, in 1894, led to the choice of Fellner & Helmer for the construction of the new theatre in Iasi, despite the many voices at the time, who would have preferred a building signed by Romanian architects.
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Further on, in Austria, the Ronacher faced a complex challenge in the early 2000s when the reconceptualisation of the stage mechanisms had to be decided. The prestige of the place as a home for oustanding performative acts took on the lead in articulating the reconfiguration of the interior space.
The necessity of theatre
“BOUVARD: A show remains without audience and a theatre goes bankrupt. A minister signs a new ‘decret’ and ten theatres close their gates. It is enough a financial crisis, a new trend or a technological innovation so that many actors remain homeless.
PÉCUCHET - And still, the theatre survived across socio-economical and technological disruptions during the last hundred of years.
BOUVARD: Perhaps, this happens because a show has the power to unravel a truth that can not be shown in the day to day life”
Eugenio BARBA & Nicola SAVARESE - The five continents of theatre. Facts and legends from the actor’s material culture, translated in Romanian by Vlad RUSSO, Nemira, 2018, p. 88
In Rijeka, attracting new audiences for the National Theatre becomes a major challenge amid an acute demographic and economic local decline. Making sense for the existence of the historical monument is a challenge in terms of preservation of the actual function, but it is also an opportunity to be creative in imagining this house as a home for new meanings and new kinds of memories to be built.
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More to the East, during early 2000s, the Fellner & Helmer theatre in Oradea was in urgent need for reparations before a major restorative process was decided and extensive works started in 2010. However, the rush behind the decision-making process impacted the end results and the main facade is already in need for new reparatory works, in less than ten years after the previous ones were finished.
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Back in time, the National Theatre in Varazdin was designed by Hermann Helmer, before joining the Viennese architectural office. Apparently, this project was his entry ticket, and the foundational ground for how the Fellner & Helmer history that we all know about began. Rumour has it that drawings of this project were exposed in his office for a long time, despite the successful journey of the architectural practice as a duo, and so many other more glamourous designs that could have occupied that space.
