COTTESLOE THEATRE

Waterloo (LT)

The Cottesloe is the smallest, the barest, the most potentially flexible and (for some people) the most potentially influential of the National houses. It is a dark-walled rectangular room, which can hold up to 400 people, but may readily be rearranged to take fewer. On three sides of the room two tiers of pillared galleries look down on an adjustable floor-space which has no fixed seating or staging. This National cockpit may be used for classical staging, for the latest experimental theatre, or for practically anything in between. You can stage an event at one end with or without a proscenium, in a corner, or in the center. You can clear the floor of seats, or group the audience close in around a central happening. Everything is open to change except the galleries, which are reminiscent of the inn-yards that preceded Shakespeare's stages.