CultureNOW - Cutler Majestic Theatre: Peter Vanderwarker

Cutler Majestic Theatre

Dates

1903

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Description

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
The Boston theater district was at its nadir in 1978, when the older of these two photos was made. We are looking along Tremont Street toward the comer of Stuart.

In the right foreground is the ravaged hulk of the once grand Majestic Theater. Renamed the Saxon in 1957, when the Sachs chain converted it to a movie house, it displays, in this photo, a ground floor that has been "renovated" to a level of chaos and ugliness so grotesque you almost wish it could have been preserved as a marvel of its kind.

Onto this ground-floor mess is stuck a marquee advertising an X-rated film. Above it all, the formal, noble Roman arches and pilasters of the original theater still rise. They
seem to be trying to ignore the indignity beneath them, as a man in a tuxedo might ignore the fact that his pants had fallen down.

The new photo, made in 1990, shows the theater in happier days. Emerson College bought the Saxon in 1983 as a home for its theater program and in 1989 reopened it as a legitimate playhouse. Today it's called the Emerson Majestic - although, if a generous donor should appear, it will surely acquire yet another name. The scaffolding supports technicians who are examining the facade, which is made entirely of the hard, glazed clay tile known as terra cotta. Their work is the tiny beginning of what Emerson hopes will be a complete restoration of the theater, inside and out, at a cost of several million.

Today it's hard to believe, but during the first third of this century a major new theater or concert hall opened every 18 months, on average, in downtown Boston - and that's not
counting dozens of smaller houses. The Majestic arrived in 1903, designed by John Galen Howard and J. M. Wood. Howard, MIT -trained, soon went west to design the campus ' of the University of California at Berkeley. Eben Jordan, founder of Jordan Marsh, provided the money for the Majestic.

Inside, the Majestic's auditorium is a lavish, domed fantasy of painted and gilded ornament that is as rich in architectural calories as any interior in Boston. Especially notable is the inventive use of electric light, then a novelty: tungsten globes set into garlanded arches that swoop above the auditorium. Beyond the Majestic, in the old photo, is a vacant lot, the site of the demolished Gary Theater. Beyond the lot are the
twin blocks of the Hotel Bradford, now renovated. In the new photo, the former Gary site is filled by the state Transportation Building, a wise public investment that has helped the theater district achieve its present state of precarious health.

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Majesty Restored", Boston Globe, 23 September 1990

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Location

Stuart St & Tremont St
Boston, MA 02116
United States

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