Theatre at Storyhouse: from Shakespeare to Alice
Chester's major new arts venue Storyhouse brings a theatre back to the city for the first time in a decade, and will present a mixture of home-produced summer and Christmas seasons, touring shows and community-led work. We find out more about the opening programme
One of the more curious British architectural trends of the late 60s was the new-build theatre, often created as part of an urban shopping development. The Bolton Octagon and Charter Theatre (Preston) are still here but others – the Forum in Wythenshawe – have long gone. Chester's Gateway closed in 2007, meaning the city has been without a building-based theatre for almost ten years. However, that’s due to change in 2017 with the opening of new cultural centre Storyhouse.
“The Gateway was wonderful,” says Storyhouse artistic director Alex Clifton, who talks passionately about wanting to democratise culture and the arts. “I grew up and learned my love for the arts in its youth theatre, and watching productions in its 440-seat auditorium. It was part of a utopian vision of theatre as a civic tool, and this is a dream we're building on at Storyhouse.”
Storyhouse – housed in a former 1936 art deco Odeon, and costing £37 million – integrates two theatre spaces (a main house and studio) alongside a library, cinema, cafe and bar. It continues and expands upon the work of the acclaimed Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre, which Clifton returned to his home town in 2010 to run (achieving impressive audience figures of 25,000 this summer). Clifton's intention is to run the two venues in parallel, with some productions taking place across both spaces: Storyhouse's 800-seat proscenium (which can convert to a 500-seat thrust stage), and Grosvenor's in-the-round outdoor space. “Storyhouse will be a great partner to Grosvenor Park,” he says, “as we offer our audience a delicious choice for their theatre-going: roof or no roof?”
[The vision for the Storyhouse stage]
Clifton doesn’t seem fazed by taking on such an ambitious project, though it’s a sensible move to surround himself with the same team who have worked so successfully at Grosvenor Park – designer Jess Curtis included. Curtis, who trained at the Morley Theatre Design Course, has worked on 13 Grosvenor Park productions including Stig of the Dump and The Secret Garden, and will design sets and costumes for all four home-produced shows in Storyhouse's opening season: Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Beggar's Opera and Alice in Wonderland (all of which, owing to Storyhouse's commitment to equality, will be performed by an ensemble with a 50/50 gender split).
“It is always a challenge and a glory to work outside,” Curtis comments on the differences of designing for outdoors and indoors. “There is a lot of emphasis on the actor in the space, less on built architecture, as it gets in the way when you design for theatre-in-the-round. The costumes have to work hard to tell the story of the world we are in; they must support the actor in creating a character, and be strong enough to register against a visually busy background.”
What about that great British conversation topic, the weather? Curtis considers being at the mercy of the elements a boon, rather than a handicap. “There are many opportunities for magical coincidences to happen,” she enthuses. “Rain falling with great pathos; a sudden shaft of sunlight. It’s interesting to think, what does being outside give us that you couldn’t have inside? The sky – we can let go of a balloon. Earth – we can dig. Space – some of our sound effects walk all around the park.
“Inside, some of the challenges are the same – understanding the space and the potential to manipulate it. Working in a new space as beautiful as Storyhouse is a massive privilege.”
[Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre. Photo: Mark McNulty]
Another member of Clifton’s ‘A Team’ is poet Glyn Maxwell, who was responsible for an inventive Wind in the Willows at Grosvenor Park in 2015 and is writing new versions of both Alice in Wonderland and The Beggar's Opera for Storyhouse's opening programme. Many poets make a late-career swerve into theatre but Maxwell was introduced to the stage at an early age (his mother is a former actor). After studying poetry and drama at the University of Boston, he returned home to Hertfordshire's Welwyn Garden City in the early 90s and hit upon the inspired idea of staging productions in his parents' back garden.
“Welwyn Garden is a place people chuckle about but it was in the town’s DNA to put plays on because it was this green, idealistic place,” says Maxwell. “A lot of people who lived there in the beginning were theatrical… I’d come back from Boston with these sprawling epics, so I thought, let’s see if my parents mind if we put them on in the garden. We filled every part of the garden, and used every room in the house… we’ve still got that house, it feels haunted by the memories of those plays.”
Not every story lends itself to outdoor theatre (The Beggar's Opera will be indoors only), and writing for the format requires a particular mindset, Maxwell believes. “You’ve got to be aware that a lot of the audience will be very young children; that some people will be hard of hearing. Really, you have to embrace it as a generous social type of theatre – it’s a celebration.”
As for Alice, there have been a great many film and television versions of Lewis Carroll’s tale, and numerous stage productions. The characters are familiar enough to be seared into popular consciousness, but it’s a story Maxwell has wanted to adapt for a long time.
“A lot of people who know the books would be hard pressed to say what order they happen in,” he says. “The films or the plays – and I haven’t enjoyed many of them – tend to put things in a different order. There are lots of bits that people don’t tend to remember: there’s a pigeon that says a lot, a lion and a unicorn, a mouse. These are things which don’t tend to get used.”
Writing another Alice could seem a thankless task, but Maxwell has an interesting perspective on Carroll’s story, describing it as a golden adventure – the last afternoon of childhood. “To be sad about your childhood coming to an end isn’t dark, it’s natural. [Alice is] rich and strange but it’s not bleak. It will have a melancholy feeling to it but there will also be a lot of fun.”
We’re a while away from the official opening but Clifton is already planning the 2018 Storyhouse season and working with community groups to programme the studio; there are endless stories to tell, he believes. “It’s a Chester boy coming back to his home town to set this thing up,” says Maxwell, “and that’s a big deal for me; I’ve had that in my own life.”
Storyhouse – Chester's brand new £37m theatre, cinema and library – opens in May 2017