Expert: Francyn Chomic - 6/16/2007

Question
What is a Tableau and what are the some technical terms  used in this type of performance? What would it take to a performance good?

Answer
Tableau is French for "Living Picture".  

To do a performance with Tableau-style, you should envision scenes as if they are pictures.  You may want to start each scene with a freeze until lights are up full and end each scene the same way.  Technically you may want to create a flash to create the image of a photograph or creative lighting to reflect a black and white or sepia image.  The tableau should be carefully developed with importance for each of the characters.  

A tableau performance could also be a series of frozen scenes that in succession tell a story. Costumes and set are important, but acting and movement is not.  Have you ever gone into a dark room and used the flash of a camera to illuminate someone moving.  Each image is burned for a few seconds until the flash appears again and the image (or scene) has changed.  With a Tableau performance each flash should progress the story.  Simple idea:  Image: Two people sitting at different tables in a cafe.  Image: These same two people picking up spilled packages. The audience understands that they left the cafe at the same time and collided sending her or his packages to the floor.  Image:  Same two people in different clothing, perhaps different season, sitting at the cafe looking adoringly at each other. Without action or dialogue the audience knows they are falling in love.  This same scenario can be continued until their death. It just depends on how the story is to be told.

You can also create a Tableau with one frozen image. With one glance the audience knows the story.  

vtheatre.net defines Tableau as "Tableau A still image, a frozen moment or "a photograph." It is created by posing still bodies and communicates a living representation of an event, an idea or a feeling.

I hope this helps.