All the world's a stage

POLAND Construction work has finally started on a unique project in Poland: The Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre. The Baltic seaport might strike readers as an unlikely setting for such a building - the city of shipyards and Solidarity strikes is not generally associated with Hamlet and King Lear.  Au contraire! In fact, it turns out that in the early 17th century Gdańsk was in fact an actual venue for performances of the works of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson by troupes of English actors. The plays were obviously popular enough for the actors to build a permanent venue in the city, based on the Fortune theatre in London. The theatre they built lays claim to having been the only authentic Shakespearean theatre ever built outside England. The original building was demolished around 200 hundred years ago and the site eventually used as a car park for the Polish secret service, which still owns part of the land. This is now to be the site of a new theatre honouring its predecessor.

To be or not to be
The history of the latest project is itself somewhat Shakespearean in scope. The project had been on the drawing board ever since Jerzy Limon founded the Theatrum Gedanense Foundation in 1991 - an organisation which has been performing The Bard's plays in the city since 1993. In a competition held by The Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre Company (of which Jerzy Limon is the managing director) in January 2005, a design for the new theatre was finally chosen. The winning design (since adapted to suit the local development plan) was the work of Italian architect Renato Rizzi, based at IUAV university in Venice. In 2008 the project was entered for a competition organised by the Polish culture ministry to provide support for large cultural projects, and came out as one of the winners. "Ever since that time we have been working on the documentation, the executive design, fighting the bureaucracy and organising public tenders, for example," Jerzy Limon told us. But this tortuous process eventually came to an end, with the company choosing Pol-Aqua as the general contractor in a tender held earlier this year. The actual construction work could then finally begin.
The Theatrum Gedanense Foundation contributed the remainder of the plot for the project, as well as part of the design and the archaeological works. The new theatre will also feature a permanent archaeological exhibition of the remains of its predecessor. However, the concept behind the project is not to build a replica of an Elizabethan theatre, such as the most famous example, Shakespeare's Globe in London. The new theatre is designed to incorporate the history of the original building, whilst being capable of functioning as a modern venue. A major difference between the two is the addition of an opening roof, as opposed to the open air theatres of the late-Tudor period. As Jerzy Limon explains: "The Globe in London is a seasonal theatre - it can only be used for four months a year. In Gdańsk we would be limited to two months. The original theatre was open to the sky, but with the opening roof we have the opportunity to have a very similar atmosphere to The Globe, and at night we can have the roof and a box stage." Renato Rizzi points out that the roof in fact plays a symbolic role: "Two wings move up into the sky, like a metal-book. Highly refined technology allows us to open and close it in less than three minutes. The roof's wings belong, in a new way, to the theatre's tradition, even if they are linked to another symbol: the history of Solidarność, born in the Gdańsk shipyard. The roof's wings embody the raised arms of freedom," claims Mr Rizzi.

The play's the thing
Another major difference is the stage, which will be adaptable for three formats: the arched Italian proscenium (or box) type, the theatre-in-the-round (a central stage with seating on four sides), as well as the traditional Elizabethan thrust stage extending into the auditorium. The layout will be flexible enough for all three types to be used in the same performance. The number of seats will depend on the arrangement of the stage, but will range between 300 and 600.
The EU is providing more than PLN 50 mln in funding for the project, with local government contributing another PLN 21 mln. Altogether, the project costs will eventually come to an estimated PLN 81 mln. The building should be completed by the end of 2012, with the company hoping to open the theatre in September 2013. Gdańsk is currently competing with four other Polish cities for the honour of being the joint European Capital of Culture in 2016.
Nathan North