My mom and I are reading the book of short stories that I mentioned back in Post No. 142 together. The author told us that day that she thought the best way to enjoy a book of short stories was not to plow through them from cover to cover, but to read one and then take some time before starting the next one. So we have been reading one story each week. This week's story is called Tableau Vivant.I learned that tableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a group of costumed actors carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move.
Before radio, film and television, tableaux vivants were popular forms of entertainment. They were sometimes used to recreate paintings on a stage, based on an etching or sketch of the painting. This was done as an amateur venture in a drawing room, the subject of Post No. 82, or as a more professionally produced series on a theater stage, one following another, usually to tell a story without requiring all the usual trappings of a "live" theater performance.
The accompanying photo is a tableau vivant of The Flight of Icarus, the subject of Post No. 158.
The person who re-created the painting had this to say about it:
This was surely a test of patience and endurance. The whole project was done in 90 minutes and I was awkwardly and unnaturally laying like that for about an hour. I’m wearing black napkins on my feet and hands, a blazer on backwards, a dress over my head and an apple is cut in half to make the heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment