Theatre Information: Restoration and Renovation
Information
The Egyptian Theatre opened
for business with "Don Juan" on April 19, 1927, and recently
celebrated it's 75th birthday.
On the 24th day of April,
1926, the Recorder of Ada County accepted the Certificate of
Incorporation of the Main Street Building Company. This
Company, with three stockholders, Mr. Leo J. Falk, Mr. Harry
K. Fritchman, and Mr. Chas. M. Kahn, each with one (1)
share, hired Tourtellotte & Hummel, Architects, for theatre
design. J.O.Jordan & Son, Contractor, built the structure.
Seven businesses: the Arcade
Buffet, the Mishking Clothing Store, Adolph
Ballot-watchmaker, Jones Furniture Co., Miller and Love's
cigar store, Peter Menderta's barber shop, and the Li Noodle
house were demolished, clearing space for the Theatre.*
Located on the corner of Main
and 7th Street (now Capitol Boulevard), Boise, Idaho, the
Egyptian, known also as the Fox in the 1930's, the ADA in
the 1940's and again as the Egyptian in the late 1970's, is
the last of the downtown single screen theaters. It has
survived the Pinney, the Rio, the Rialto (originally the
Isis), the Strand (originally the New Boz, eventually the
Granada, now the Bouquet), the Grand (later the Boise), and
the Majestic.
The Egyptian was placed on the
National Register of Historic Places November 21, 1974, sold
to the Boise Redevelopment Agency September 1, 1975, and
then re-sold in June, 1977 to Boise businessman Earl Hardy;
thus surviving a peculiar form of convulsive cultural self
destruction known as "Urban Renewal".
In 1978-79, working with
Hummel, Jones, Shawver, Miller, P.A. Architects, Mr. Hardy
used personal funds and preservation grants to address code,
functional and aesthetic liabilities. Subsequently, Mr.
Hardy established the Hardy Foundation, Inc. which now owns
the building. Presently, the Egyptian Theatre is operated by
the Egyptian Theatre Company.
The Auditorium Proscenium
The proscenium, with much
gilded detailing, is the main feature of the Auditorium. A
large winged scarab, detailed in the drawings, holds a sun
disk with ureaus, and is above the cornice torus within a
painted geometric star motif panel. Completing the guilded
scarab ornament, symbolizing the birth of the sun and
centered above the Stage, are flanking horizontal reed
bundles set with three swan-like figures on stylized water.
Below, the outer proscenium arch is formed by three corbels
witch at each side are supported by engaged columns.
At each end of the outer
proscenium is an affronted war chariot (sic) patterned after
the "King Seti I Fighting the Hitites" fresco, Great
Hypostyle Hall, Karnack. Above each plumed pair of horses is
a sacred vulture. Beneath the horses, at each side, a fallen
warrior holds a mace and axe. Though an invention, the
warriors and the extensive hieroglyphic infillings, like all
the painted figures, are accurately depicted, with some
license, in terms of ancient Egyptian art. Reading from left
to right on the outer proscenium are symmetrically arranged
scenes frequently depicted in the "Book of the Dead".
The three figures of the
middle corbel depict a youth with a characteristic side hair
knot holding a plume fan above a Pharoah (sic) wearing the
crown of Lower Egypt with additional divine symbols, who
acknowledges the sun god, Amon-Re, with a double plume,
double uraeus, and sun disk crown. This scene is terminated
with an afterlife god, Osiris, mummy figure in a sarcophagus
framework.
Above the upper left corbel,
the Pharoah (sic), on the right, presents an offering to the
seated sister deities, Nephthys (Goddess of the Dead), in
front, and Isis (Goddess of Rebirth). Separated by cartouche
frames, the central "sun barge" located below the scarab is
probably a corruption of the Egyptian "Journey of the Sun"
and the classical River Styx-Hades myths. Lack of space at
the top of the proscenium seems to have necessitated a
simple ferryman conveying three hieroglyphic deity
representations across stylized water.
The scene of the upper right
corbel depicts a Pharoah (sic) making an offering to a
seated Osiris. A second Osiris mummy figure introduces the
grou of figures of the middle corbel which includes the god
of embalming (sic), Anubis; the Pharoah (sic), wearing the
crown of Lower Egypt; and a boy attendant with a side hair
knot and a plume fan. The lower corbels are ornamented with
a lotus-papyrus band and each corbel is typically edged with
a dart border which volutes around paterae at each
semicircular end. The soffits are ornamented with continuous
coil spirals with centered lotus motifs. The pattern is
doubled on the ceiling between the arches.
The inner proscenium arch is
characterized by trios of seated harpists flanking a group
of figures probably depicting mourners, which are separated
from the harpists by mastaba tomb indications and Osiris
mummy figures. The false corbel of the inner proscenium has
similar dart bordering and lotus-papyrus bands with lotus
ornamented soffits. Centered in the corbel recess is a
spread winged, sacred vulture between cartouche frames and
hieroglyphic representations of various Egyptian deities
also depicted on the abacus block of the engaged columns.
The 1999 Restoration of the
Egyptian was commissioned by the Hardy Foundation, Inc.;
Project Architect, Gregory A. Kaslo, AIA.
Historic American Buildings
Survey, HABS No. ID-3
*The Idaho Sunday Statesman,
April 4, 1926 |
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