Best Places to Watch a Play

Our biggest bugaboo: theaters without fixed seating that insist on lining up their chairs one behind the other. What's so difficult about staggering rows? The various companies who inhabit the ArtLoft Theatre still haven't figured out the best use of that space for either sets or audience; if you're not in the first few rows at most HotHouse or New Line productions, you might as well be seeing a play at Savvis Center. No matter where you sit at the Grandel, you feel as if you're not facing the stage (a trait shared by the Edison Theatre). And the City Players' new home, upstairs at St. John's Episcopal Church, is about as gloomy a place to watch a play as one could imagine. The nicest places to settle in for the evening are the Rep, which, like American Airlines, has increased its leg room, and the Robert G. Reim Theatre at the Kirkwood Community Center, home of Stages and the Kirkwood Community Theatre. Why is Stages so anxious to leave this lovely room?