Tréteau- Platform Theatre
Using a reduced space actors have the ability to tell epic stories in the tiny space. The reduced space functions like a camera lens, focusing the audience’s eye on a tight stage picture. The performers never leave the tréteau, but instead become shapeshifters using the small stage to tell the biggest stories.
One important tool in the kit of the physical theatre actor is that of constraint. “Tréteau” is one of a series of training styles that deal with constraint. Here there are no props, costumes, or effects beyond what the actors embody. The trateau stage is a 1x2 meter space off of which the actors cannot move. The constraint of this tiny space forces the actors to discover themselves, each other, and to use their bodies as the generators of theatrical images.
Trateau training essentializes the actor’s expression similar to a ”close-up shot” in film and enables the ensemble to collaborate in creating stories larger than what they could create alone.
“It felt like a mixture of a dance and meditation. Like it wasn’t possible to be anything other than in the moment both for me as an audience member and you on stage”
