Barclay Theatre Praised for Acoustics, Sense of Intimacy

If the new Irvine Barclay Theatre is Irvine’s soul, as one local official has dubbed it, then the hall had its first heartbeat Sunday, and those on hand to take its pulse were pleased with what they found.

“Acoustically, it sounded very well,” said John Praisler, a Laguna Beach builder who attended the theater’s inaugural concert, courtesy of South Coast Symphony, with his 9-year-old son Jeffrey. He was one of several patrons who drew comparisons to the Orange County Performing Arts Center as they assessed the new venue.

“It’s small and intimate and a lot nicer than the Performing Arts Center,” Praisler said. “You don’t feel like you’re in a big barn.”

With 756 seats, the $17.6-million facility on the UC Irvine campus is about one-quarter the size of the Center’s main hall in Costa Mesa. Several people at Sunday’s matinee performance said they liked its intimate feel and gave high marks to the auditorium’s acoustics.

“That house sounds wonderful,” said Irvine Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan, who worked for 15 years to bring the theater to a reality.

Ribbon-cutting ceremonies held a week ago gave the public its first chance to inspect the new theater, completed on time and on budget, according to general manager Douglas C. Rankin. But the first musical strains were not heard until Sunday, when a nearly sellout crowd listened to music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aram Khachaturian and Beethoven.

At intermission, the theater’s acoustician, Ronald L. McKay, said the acoustics “sounded wonderful.” But he added that a true assessment could not be made until a full range of presentations had been made, such as drama and musical theater.

“We’re going to know if we’ve achieved our goals in a couple of months after all those programs have been done,” McKay said.

Don Smith of Garden Grove found the plush velvet seats comfortable, though he felt they could have been “a few inches wider.” He mentioned that he enjoyed being able to order coffee at the theater, a forbidden pleasure at the “more formal” Center.

No seat at the new facility is more than 60 feet from the stage, a fact that didn’t escape Dorothy Sauvageau of Orange, who was also glad that her home county now had another theater for live entertainment. Local groups as well as nationally known artists and troupes are scheduled to perform.

“We used to drive to the Shubert Theatre (in Century City) and it always rained,” she said with a laugh.

And Doug Park, a UC Irvine sophomore, said the venue would increase the university’s artistic cachet.

“It took a long time to build this, but it’s kind of like there’s culture to our school now,” he said.