The False Proscenium: Kean, Macbeth, and Macbett in England, Summer 2007

In the more than 2000-year history of the theatre, the proscenium arch is a relatively recent invention. Made necessary and desirable with the introduction of illusionistic scenery, the proscenium arch frames and contextualizes the world on the stage and separates that world from the world of the observing spectator. The form has dominated theatrical architecture for more than three hundred years, and although it has recently fallen from favor, three recent productions have proven-both literally and figuratively-that the proscenium's frame can still be a powerful source of theatrical meaning.

In 2007, the Royal Shakespeare Company began the process of replacing its oft-maligned proscenium theatre with a modified thrust configuration much like that already available in the wildly successful Swan Theatre. The plan to renovate the Royal Shakespeare Theatre was first proposed during the tumultuous final act of Adrian Noble's tenure as the Company's artistic director, so it is perhaps ironic that in Noble's West End production of Kean the director not only worked within the ornately prosceniumed confines of the Apollo Theatre, but also that his design added an additional gilded proscenium complete with its own red velvet curtain. Even when the false proscenium had been whisked away in a stunningly fluid scene change, the idea of the frame lingered in the form of the enormous, golden makeup mirror that dominated Kean's onstage dressing room. The stage thus became the theatrical equivalent of a Matryoshka doll or Peer Gynt's endless onion, each frame revealing yet another frame inside. The effect was apt, given the multivalent nature of the text: Noble's production featured Frank Hauser's English translation of Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist rewrite of Alexandre Dumas père's Romantic drama about the Regency actor Edmund Kean.

The nesting effect of the design continued through the casting of the production, which relied heavily on the audience's ability to see the actors' personal and professional...