About the
New Rohan Theatre

It was founded in 1891 by five disenchanted poets (Rebus Kraven, Oliver Coffyn, Count Eric Stenbock (known to his friends as Harry), Frances Featherstone (known to his friends as Alex), and Niles Alain) who met in the decadent atmosphere of late Victorian Brighton, and were each troubled, for his own reasons, by the increasing complacency of audiences, and the self-satisfied grandiosity of contemporary performers, such as Sir Henry Irving. They vowed to create a new kind of theatre, one where art did not imitate life, but life imitated art.

Their original manifesto (amended in 1906) was secretly printed in 1892 and was rapidly distributed amongst various underground networks of radical artists all across the continent, many of whom saw the Rohan Theatre as a justification for larger scale social agitation. By 1901 it was the largest underground association of thinkers, poets, painters, musicians and aesthetes in Europe.

Among the first successes of the Rohan Theatre was Harry Stenbock’s “Petit Comte”. For the last 3 years of his life (1892-1895) he was accompanied everywhere he went by a life-size wooden doll, which he referred to as “Le Petit Comte”. He would behave towards this doll in every way as if it were his son and heir. The “Theatre” was not his own knowing performance, but that of all those around him who, because he was a Count, or because they thought him both rich and mad, would also treat the doll as if it were real. He even paid a Jesuit minister to educate the “Petit Comte”, and would sit and watch the poor man for hours as he attempted to drill the doll in Greek and Latin. This single example gives a clear indication of the nature and spirit of the Rohan Theatre, although, of course not all projects work over such a long period of time.

Another, now infamous example of a performance by the Rohan Theatre was the staged riot at the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”. Performed in collaboration with Diagilev Najinsky, and Stravinsky himself, who had in the past contributed to a number of Rohan Theatre performances, the riot was initially started by four actors, whose abusive shouts were written by Featherstone and whose “fistifuffs” were choreographed by Najinsky. The Rohan Theatre performance began once the audience were drawn into the fight, and then still further with press reports, and the building of the myth of the “riot at the Rite”. In many ways this performance is still ongoing.

Many leading 20th century artists have acknowledged their debt of inspiration to the Rohan Theatre over the years, and some have commemorated it (in a veiled but nonetheless distinct manner) in their works. Among these, the most important references are in Herman Hesse’s novel “Steppenwolf” and Franz Kafka’s “America”. Both of these references play on the Rohan Theatre’s essential blurring of where theatre starts and reality stops. Hesse is himself thought to have been involved in a Rohan Theatre performance in June 1926, and the “Magic Theatre” that appears throughout “Steppenwolf” with the flickering electric sign “For Madmen Only” or “Entrance Not For Everybody” is clearly a reference to the Rohan Theatre. Franz Kafka’s “Oklahoma Theatre” plays a similar role in his novel “America” and the conclusion can only be the same, although there is no evidence of Kafka’s direct involvement with the Rohan Theatre.

The name “Rohan” comes from the first names of the original founders – Rebus, Oliver, Harry, Alex and Niles, as initialled on the original manifesto of 1891.

To learn more of the history of the Rohan Theatre, its activities and its founders click on the history button above.

To recognise a performance by the Rohan Theatre would be to undermine its very nature, and hence its shows are always credited to others. If you think you have seen a performance by the Rohan Theatre, you are either mistaken, or the performance failed.