CHRISTOTÉ


The Triple Cities

The Domes Theatre

Leading theatre in the Cities, and increasingly the most prestigious in all Teraf, the Domes Theatre in Jalkin was built in the first great planning programme of 1008-32. Lying in Vellers Square, opposite the Town Hall, the Domes is a large, elegant building, much given to columns & sloping walls externally, its blank front usually draped in artistic tapestries which generally depict scenes from plays currently or presently running (the more blood the better, on the whole). On the inside it is the standard of sloping of expensive seats at the back to the cheap benches at the front, down to a stage which has seen more trapdoors, mechanical illusions and false walls than a sorcerer's labyrinth. The Domes owes its success to a strong Dorlafan tradition of plays, and to the arrival of Stayson Cooper & his artistic circle from Hyath in 1075, which kick-started Jalkin's cultural reputation. Two of Cooper's most famous plays, the Comedians & The Scarlet Earl, were both huge successes in 1077 & 1078, and many more of his plays were run in the theatre; Cooper in turn became more and more involved in Domes affairs and was practically running the place up to his death. That set the artistic reputation of the Domes, continued through a string of famous names to be linked with the theatre, from Allinon Smithson through Myers Cass up till Holin Callar, the most recent Titan. Later the Domes was to become just as famous a landmark for financial and business incompetence. This was sealed in 1186 when attempts were made to add a roof - the Domes was originally open to the elements, but this had gone out o fashion long before this date - which became an incredibly protracted affair, costing two successive managers their jobs at the hands of exasperated patrons, twice dragging the theatre close to bankruptcy and eventually lasting 50 years, in a city that was built practically from scratch in the same length of time. The roof, after various grandiose plans fell on their faces, was eventually a simple sloping tiled affair, and for years a custom in the audience waiting for a play to start would be to gaze up at the ceiling for some time, before remarking in disbelief, "Is that it?" Though the Roof Affair and several subsequent misdemeanours - the loss though theft of two months takings whilst uninsured in 1276 springs to mind - the Domes has remained in theory an independent company, run by a single manager (currently the actor Ceycil Poulton). In practice most major decisions have to be OK'd by the Board of Patrons, local worthies who pour varying amount of money into it in return for the prestige. The board is currently chaired by Myers Fortraine, a younger brother of Holstace. Again in theory the theatre exists as a company, with only the work of employees (actors, writers, directors, stage-hands etc.) used, but outsiders are often used, either because they're cheaper, or they're visiting big cheeses who would pull in the crowds. The Domes also has its own travelling company, set up in 1205, who tour the Christote's provincial theatre's, a tight-knit, semi-independent, cliquey group of actors & artists.

The Domes isn't a universally loved theatre, for all its history and importance. Many see it both as too conservative and too fashion led - that is, once it adopts a style of play puts on nothing else but that style for years to follow. It also sweeps anything controversial or anti-government under the carpet too quickly for the Cities, where art & politics are often entwined. It most famously tried to ignore Allinon Smithson's burning talent until its hand was forced, and there are numerous examples of past playwrights who, unfairly denied the hallmark of quality a Domes curtain gives a play, remained relatively obscure. Current Domes criticisms mainly rest on its obsession with restaging the plays of a small, select group of big names from the past, and of the inability of the rarefied atmosphere of the theatre to cope with the more freeform, interactive plays currently in vogue, pioneered by Holin Callar (Ceycil Poulton's refusal to allow musicians in the theatre is well-known).