Timaru’s Theatre Royal: A place to uplift spirits and widen visions

Tuesday, 20 August 2024

Martin Stewart moved back to the Timaru district two years ago, having spent most of his childhood and teenage years in Timaru. Now residing in Totara Valley, Stewart is a Presbyterian minister and works as an executive officer of the Alpine Presbytery, a role which has oversight of the upper South Island.

Opinion: I am not a believer of the notion that all old buildings must be retained for nostalgic reasons. But some bubble higher than others.

Of course, the Theatre Royal can be replaced with a more practical concrete slab fit-for-purpose building, but that is not a sound argument when it comes to considerations about heritage buildings.

The built environment shapes us and is a significant indicator of our sense of home and wellbeing. A significant dimension of why we travel to other places is to engage with the buildings and features of the past – they serve as reminders of home, they connect us with the stories of our formation, their aesthetic qualities highlight the attempts of past generations to create something that says ‘yes, we were here’, while adding something of lasting significance for generations to come.

The Theatre Royal is one of those buildings in Timaru.

It is a hall of memories, a place where generations of people have gathered to have their spirits lifted and their vision widened. It is a place that has celebrated the arts and prompted every generation since the first theatre was built on the site in 1877.

Not many spaces enable this.

Church buildings have played this role for centuries, with architecture that draws one’s eyes upward, matched with beauty and form to lift people above themselves into a wider vision of what is possible – large, storied spaces that transcend people’s little and often struggling lives.

The soundshell at the Bay functions in this way, but it is much harder to create mystique and vision when the venue is weather dependent, where it is challenging to manage both light and sound, and the concrete seating quickly becomes uncomfortable for the audience.

In the theatre, none of those challenges are present.

When the lights dim, the magic happens: the sudden hush as the MC appears in front of the curtain, the opening chord, the curtains drawn, the costumed actors or band of musicians, and the crowd responding as one as they are immediately transported into an alternative world where spirits are lifted.

Sure, this can occur in any theatre – old or new, but the architecture of the old theatre, so similar to the carefully preserved and restored Christchurch Isaac Theatre Royal, is a partner in the spectacle. The architecture itself is a vision of an alternative world.

I remember, as a youngster, many seasons of rehearsals in dull functional halls and the significance of finally entering the theatre in the days ahead of opening night.

The sea change created by what the building brought to the production was something to behold. The smell, the history, the structure, the mechanics, the rituals, but especially, the beauty… it was intoxicating and everything lifted in that moment.

The collective of cast and crew rose to a greater height or, was it that they were lifted?

The magic began and the sound of a large, gathered crowd assembling in the seats on the other side of the closed curtain added a deeper ripple of excitement, hope, and mystery. The sum of the various parts all interacting together – performers, audience, and place created something more than we could ever have expected.

Underestimating the role of that place in helping us be us is part of what is at risk if we choose to walk away from restoring the Theatre Royal.

An alternative will serve a function, but it will not compare with what a long-serving, well-storied, ornate theatre offers.

This is why cities preserve important spaces for future generations, and why hundreds of people seek them out when they visit the city.

It is also something, I’m sensing, of what drove the majority of people, in a recent council initiated survey, to vote for the full restoration and development of the theatre and its adjacent site even though the costs had ballooned.

It was not simply that people wanted to recover the theatre for their own pleasure, but that they recognised that they had inherited it as a significant legacy project from previous generations and they had a duty of care to play their part in looking after it.

Here is this generation of Timaruvians’ great challenge: to recognise the value of what we have received and to play our part in paying it forward.

One of the despairing elements in the recent chapter of the Theatre Royal development drama was the very late-in-the-piece option of a theatre, museum and library development on the existing library site.

The speed with which most of the elected councillors were drawn to this option, without any assessment of cost- effectiveness, was indicative of exactly what is at risk in Timaru.

The new proposal would necessitate the demolition of the existing library.

As a recent returner to Timaru, something that has stood out to me is that there has not been much innovative and significant public or commercial architecture created for almost 100 years.

Timaruvians have ridden on the coat tails of the vision of generations from what is now the distant past.

My assessment is that there are only four examples of significant public and commercial architecture since the 1930s and plenty of poor ones. The four that I identify are the museum, the piazza, the CBay pool complex, and the public library.

To even consider demolishing one of these, and arguably the best of these, is beyond belief.

It serves to illustrate the heart of the problem Timaru has in relation to its distinctive architecture and the opportunity for its future that these buildings provide; it is simply not valued for what it is.

One of the qualities of the Timaru district/South Canterbury region is that they are made up of practical people, but pragmatic solutions are not always the right ones.

Tourism needs to be factored in as the economy of the district is mapped, as well as community identity and wellbeing.

Engaging with the heritage factor is a significant attraction for tourists and locals. Tourist operators are becoming aware of this and are beginning to identify Timaru has a place for cruise ships to visit.

These tourists are not coming to Timaru for the shopping! They are coming to engage with what is an attractive and interesting city precinct, and the truth is that the attractive buildings are not the new ones.

They are the ones that remind people of home – of the stories of what and who formed them.

In a world where many people feel disoriented and detached, Timaru offers a sense of connection and comfort, interest and belief.

It makes economic sense to draw visitors to a museum linked to an old but beautiful theatre as well as it makes aesthetic sense.

But it also makes sense as we celebrate and invest in the part that the arts play in the development of a sense of our identity in what it means to be human and to be humans who are well.