The next step is illustrated in the playhouse that is usually called "the first modern theatre," the Teatro Farnese at Parma (1618 or 1619), diagram of which is shown in fig. 9. Here the entire stage may be said to have been pushed through the central doorway of the old stage wall, the ornamentation of the Roman scene remaining only as decoration of what is now the proscenium arch. The stage within is curtained off from the auditorium (fig. 9A) and is thus adapted to changing pictorial settings. From this time on the curtained stage and proscenium arch are unfail ing features of the theatre. The plan of the Farnese theatre is particularly interesting, too, as showing the entry of another influence into the shaping of the auditorium : instead of a semi circular bank of seats, as illustrated in the diagrams so far, the auditorium is U-shaped (fig. 9B). This influence entered because the masques and court plays had been produced largely in ballrooms or banquet-halls, where one end of the hall had been reconstructed for an auxiliary stage, the main floor left free for dancing, or as an "arena" for pageantry, etc., with the spectators ranged around the three sides away from the stage, perhaps in chairs on temporary platforms, perhaps in balconies. Architects combining this U shaped auditorium with the curtained proscenium-frame stage soon determined the theatre form that was the basic plan of the famous horseshoe auditorium (fig.
).
It was this Italian plan that became the standard of theatre building throughout the Western world, conquering successively the French courts, the courts of Austria, Bavaria and other countries to which the Italian Renaissance influence extended, then England (where the Elizabethan theatre form was cast aside —having only the slightest influence after the Restoration), and indirectly America. "Scenery" was soon standardized so that the wings and backdrop restricted the playing space to a wedge shaped section of the stage floor; and the auditorium lines roughly followed the lines formed by the edges of the wings (fig. 12). This picture scene persisted through two and a half centuries, with ever greater elaboration, demanding larger and larger stages; and the auditorium half of the building kept its many galleried horseshoe plan. With variations toward rounder or narrower auditorium, the general form persisted until late in the 19th cen tury, from smaller court playhouses to immense opera houses.
At first the arena portion of the auditorium was merely a flat floor, and consequently the best seats were not there but at the front of the first balcony; and almost throughout the period of the horseshoe theatre, the main floor sloped but slightly, thus allowing three, four or five superimposed balconies or gal leries.
and Italy, where the t7th–t8th century theatre form stubbornly persists, the orchestra is contracted, and the more expensive seats are in the slightly raised ring of loges and the first balcony above.
During the 19th century there were efforts to reform the "pic ture" scene, and with it the horseshoe auditorium, which almost invariably had possessed the disadvantage of providing a consid erable number of seats, at the gallery ends, which had a poor view of the stage. The first attempts of importance to design a more democratic type of theatre, and one in which "sight-lines" would more logically determine the form occurred in Germany. The Festival thea tre at Bayreuth is the most noteworthy example, greatly antedating the present general movement toward the fan-shaped auditorium. Its main outlines are shown in fig. 13.
The impulse was taken up by Max Litt mann, the most notable theatre architect of the century-end; his Prince Regent theatre and Kiinstlertheatre in Munich, and his Schiller theatre in Charlottenburg, Berlin, all with simplified banks of seats, had great influence in both Europe and America. Littmann experimented also with the proscenium frame in an effort to adapt the theatre to the demands of modern stage lighting. More re cently architectural practice, particularly in Germany and the United States, has come to the fairly standardized form that is shown in fig. 14. Here the architects restrict the horseshoe bow ing-out, since the scene is no longer wedge-shaped but more usually box-like, and the auditorium is narrower in relation to the width of the proscenium opening. (In large cities where ground-value is such an important consideration, the commercial theatres are commonly built with wider proscenium openings and wider auditoriums, but on the fan principle. Standard fire laws impose the necessity for a certain number of aisles and adjacent doorways, and have caused minor differences from the type as it developed in Ger many.) In general it may be said that the modern auditorium presents a single bank of seats, on a floor uniformly sloping or slightly saucer-shaped, more tilted than during the horseshoe period, and restricted at the sides along lines determined by the edges of the proscenium opening. There is usually a single bal cony, with a steeply sloped floor, at the rear. There are seldom boxes (unless at the back of the orchestra) and modern en gineering and steel construction make it possible to dispense with pillars and posts. The outline plan is not unlike the plan of the arena or pit portion of the many-galleried opera houses, with the surrounding galleries sliced off. Along with this simplification of plan there has been a general simplification in decoration.