The two other producers mentioned a paragraph or two back were
Jacques Copeau and Erwin Piscator. Copeau founded his Theatre du Vieux
Colombier as early as
1913,
and in 1919 a theatre was built to designs
drawn up by Louis Jouvet. There was no proscenium. The audience sat in a
bare hall facing a permanent set made of concrete
—a series of platforms
linked by steps. It had something in common with the Elizabethan stage, but was in no sense a reconstruction, and was intended to be used for all
types of play. But the audience soon grew bored, and critics complained of
its ‘drab puritanism’ and ‘unbearable monotony’. Copeau took his company