What's so wrong with proscenium arch theatre?

We're told that modern audiences are after interactivity and intimacy – but are traditional theatres really so bad?

There is widespread enthusiasm for immersive, site-specific performance, as well as a revival of interest in older performance forms like theatre-in-the-round, traverse, promenade and street theatre. But what have we all got against the proscenium arch? No single manifesto or programme announced its demise, but various accusations seem to come up time and time again. First, that the proscenium arch was designed for a theatre based on lavish illusion, which we no longer have the taste for. Second, that it embodies a middle-class set of social and cultural behaviours, normalised as the unwritten rules of How To Watch Theatre. Third, that it promotes passivity – which today's audiences, used to interactivity and with shorter attention spans, will not tolerate. [read more]

As The Lowry goes all interactive and immersive again with last night's production of Domini Public (I didn't see it, as it happens, although it looks to have been interesting  - yes, this new-fangled theatre is spreading oop north too) here's an interesting article in The Guardian.

For what it's worth, I have been sitting in theatres watching stuff for most of my life - for 30+ years now - and don't have a problem with 'conventional' theatre. In fact, I have an aversion to (if not terror of) audience participation - let alone 'immersion' - and easily-plumbed layers of embarrassment and self-consciousness that means I prefer sitting and watching...