How it Works:
Explain tableaux -
Before breaking the students into small groups, the teacher challenges students to think of images from the story they have just heard. Direct them to think of images that would make a good, dramatic picture to illustrate the story they have heard. These images should have more than one person in them since we are look-ing for human interaction in the pictures we will be making. As the students come up with ideas, keep track of them on an overhead or on the board so that everyone can see what options there are. Once you’ve written down all the ideas, number them to make them easier to identify later.
Now explain that each group will be making a tableau out of one of these moments in the story. There are a couple of tricks to making this work. The most impor-tant is that they must make their tableau in complete silence. That means no ver-bal negotiating. They must look around at their fellow students to see what part of the tableau needs to be made. They must be flexible and work with the group to make a tableau that the audience will recognize.
The second trick to making tableaux work is that you only need to give them about a minute to make them. At first, this will sound impossible to everyone. But, it is actually very easy and kids will discover that making a frozen, silent picture is fast work.
Model tableaux -
Now model what you want with one of the groups or with students you know will be willing to come up and take a risk. Choose one of the moments from the story that you have identified on the board. See if they can get into a position that il-lustrates that part of the story quickly and without talking.
As you watch, with the class, you can give directions to help underscore whether something is clear to the audience or if someone’s facial expression is not visible. Other directions to give if you want this exercise to be one you can build on in future drama activities is to pay attention to interactions between characters in the scene. Pay attention to making the picture interesting to the audience by put-ting people on different levels.
Work on the tableaux -
Now, the groups break up and you assign them one of the scenes from the board. If you want, you can hand out a number to each group so that you don’t have ev-eryone in the room making the same moment from the story. Or, you can assign everyone the same moment in the story on purpose, to see how people see it dif-ferently.
Walk around and check as they go, helping them to make their tableaux clear to the audience. You will also have to police the rule about no talking. Believe me, it is much better without all the negotiating and you will see things from students you may
seldom hear from in class if they are not cowed by the usual verbal managers.
Once all the tableaux have been made, have the groups make their tableaux simul-taneously so that there is no audience. Challenge them to think about the charac-ters they are playing. Ask them to think about what is going through that character’s head at that moment in the scene. Have them think of one sentence that describes that feeling. Have everyone mumble what they are thinking simul-taneously, just to get them in the mood of the scene.
Present the Tableaux –
Finally, each group presents their tableau, one at a time, with the rest of the class as audience. You can play a sort of game of charades, if you have made it so each group has a different scene. Let the students know, in that case, that you will give the audience just 3 guesses to figure out which scene is being presented. If no one guesses, tell the students you will be tapping someone on the tableau on the head to hear that feeling they have just described to themselves. That should help the audience figure out what is happening. If not, tap another. Be sure to warn them that you will do this in advance!
Once the scene has been enacted (on the count of three, from you), ask for volun-teers to guess which scene from those on the board they are seeing. If, after 3 guesses, the audience cannot guess which scene they are illustrating, tap an indi-vidual in the tableau and ask her to say what her character is thinking at that mo-ment in the scene.
If you are having everyone do the same scene, once all the tableaux have been en-acted, sit down and discuss what differences you saw and what similarities. How does that help us to better understand the story we just heard? |
