Balcony Seating

The dress circle of Marina Picture Palace in Rosebery, New South Wales, still holds its rows of chairs. The plasterwork ceiling above has partially collapsed, sections sagging or missing entirely, and the light that enters the auditorium now falls differently than it did when the balcony was full. The chairs remain where they were placed, arranged in the curved geometry of the upper level, looking out toward where the screen once stood. Marina Picture Palace was designed by architect William de Putron and opened on 28 May 1927. De Putron was not a hired hand on this project; he was a member of the consortium that built and operated the cinema, alongside builder William Henry Rumble and cinema entrepreneur Eric Christensen, who placed a gold sovereign in the brickwork during construction. The building was constructed of brick with a painted and rendered facade to Gardeners Road in the Inter-War free-classical style, its stepped parapet and symmetrical fenestration deliberately scaled to stand apart from the single-storey bungalows of the surrounding neighbourhood. The auditorium was divided into stalls at ground level and a dress circle above, reached by twin stairs that bracketed the main entrance to the foyer. The ceiling was originally pressed metal Wunderlich panels. In November 1955 a new Bakelite screen was installed, the walls repainted deep mushroom on the pillars and misty lilac between panels, the ceiling midnight blue. The Marina passed through the Ward brothers, then Mascot Theatres Pty Ltd under Snider and Dean, then the Louis Film Company, which operated it from 1967 as a Greek-language cinema. After a failed reopening in October 1982, the building closed as a cinema for the final time on 8 February 1984. The stalls were converted to a video shop; the dress circle was taken out of use. This photograph, made in 2019, records what the balcony holds now: the chairs, the damaged ceiling, and the light.