New Fortune Theatre

Theatre at University of Western Australia, Perth, opened 29 January 1964. Architect: Marshall Clifton.

The first attempt in modem times to reproduce the dimensions of the stage and auditorium of a public theatre of the time of Queen Elizabeth I of England was the New Fortune Theatre. It is a square quadrangle with a thrust stage, pit and three galleries inside the arts faculty building at the University of Western Australia. It conforms in general to the layout of the surrounding galleries and tiring house, or dressing room, of the Fortune Theatre that Edward Alleyn built in London in 1600. It does not replicate a 17th-century London theatre but simply provides the same actor-audience relationship as a theatre of Shakespeare's time. 

Allen Edwards, professor of English at the University of Western Australia, promoted the idea of following the Fortune dimensions when the architect was designing the arts faculty building. He saw it as a tribute to Harley Granville-Barker, who had advocated a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre as essential to any university department of English that specialised in performance studies. Members of the English department, including Jeana Bradley, Philip Parsons and Neville Teede, supported Edwards.

The dimensions of the Globe Theatre do not exist but the basic measurements of the Fortune are on record. The stage platform, 13.1 metres wide by 8.4 metres deep, projects into the yard, which is 21 metres deep by 19.8 metres wide, including the depth of the 'galleries'. These are verandahs, which in the New Fortune conform to the three levels of the arts faculty building rather than to the heights of the galleries in the original theatre. Cutting across the quadrangle to provide access from one side of the building to the other is a three-level walkway, which has been modified to supply the principal theatrical requirements of a tiring house. The university banned rehearsal and performance during the academic year because tutorial rooms overlooked the quadrangle. The actor-audience relationship has nevertheless led to significant research, particularly by Parsons and Collin O'Brien, into Shakespeare's use of the stage.

The New Fortune opened with Hamlet during the Festival of Perth in 1964, the quadricentenary of Shakespeare's birth. John Gielgud, who was visiting Perth, recorded Ben Jonson's tribute to Shakespeare as a prologue. It has been regularly used during the festival and in February 1968 there was a memorable production by Aarne Neeme and Parsons of Richard III, with Martin Redpath in the title-role. Dorothy Hewett wrote her early plays This Old Man Comes Rolling Home (1966), The Chapel Perilous (1971) and Catspaw (1974) for the New Fortune. On the university campus the New Fortune Theatre complements the proscenium-stage Dolphin Theatre, the thrust-stage Octagon Theatre and the open-air Sunken Gardens Theatre.