Physical theatre is a genre of theatrical performance that encompasses storytelling primarily through physical movement. Although several performance theatre disciplines are often described as “physical theatre,” the genre’s characteristic aspect is a reliance on the performers’ physical motion rather than, or combined with, text to convey storytelling. Performers can communicate through various body gestures (including using the body to portray emotions).
Physical theatre may utilize pre-existing text, but the primary focus is on the physical work of the actors, expressed through the use of their bodies. It is a highly visual form of theatre. The action in physical theatre may have a psychological base, or symbolic resonance, or point to an emotional center, or have a clear storyline, or any combination of the above, and it may grow out of codified forms, improvisational work, or invented gestural language among other means of creation. However, the means of expression are always primarily physical rather than textual.
Some analysts believe that physical theatre was influenced by Bertolt Brecht and his attempt to reduce theatre to its “epic form.”
Why Is It So Hard To Define Physical Theatre?
The definition of physical is very hard to trace. This is partly to do with multiple origins, and partly to do with the fact that very few practitioners themselves are comfortable with the definition. In Through the Body by Dympha Callery, she suggests that the phrase originated more as a marketing term to describe anything that doesn’t fit within the commercial literary theatre. Indeed, there is a lot to support this: so-called Physical Theatre companies often don’t share any defining stylistic characteristics other than that they don’t make commercial theatre based on “Staged Literature”.
Many practitioners express resistance to this term because they feel that physical theatre is used as a “misc.” category for anything that doesn’t fall neatly into a category of literary dramatic theatre or contemporary dance. For this reason, contemporary theatre includes post-modern performance, devised performance, visual performance, and post-dramatic performance; while having their own distinct definitions is often simply labeled “physical theatre” without reason other than because it’s unusual in some way.
Another problematic area is dance, which is of a theatrical nature. Often a dance piece will call itself “Physical Theatre” because it included elements of spoken word, character, or narrative and therefore be theatrical and physical, but this might not necessarily have anything in common with a potential (and nascent) physical theatre tradition.
Who Invented Physical Theatre – The Origin Story
The modern physical theatre has grown from a variety of origins. Mime and theatrical clowning schools such as L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris have had a big influence on many modern expressions of physical theatre, and practitioners such as Steven Berkoff and John Wright received their initial training at such institutions.
Contemporary Dance has also had a strong influence on what we regard as physical theatre, partly because most physical theatre requires actors to have a level of physical control and flexibility rarely found in those who do not have some sort of movement background.
The modern physical theatre also has strong roots in more ancient traditions such as Commedia dell’arte and some suggest links to the ancient Greek theatre, particularly the theatre of Aristophanes.
Read More: History of Mime & Timeline of Development
Another tradition started with the very famous French master Etienne Decroux (father of corporeal mime). Etienne Decroux’s aim was to create a theatre based on the physicality of the actor, allowing the creation of a more metaphorical theatre. This tradition has now grown and corporeal mime is taught in many major theatrical schools.
Daniel Stein, a teacher out of the lineage of Etienne Decroux, has this to say about physical theatre:
I think physical theatre is much more visceral and audiences are affected much more viscerally than intellectually. The foundation of theater is a live, human experience, which is different from any other form of art that I know of. Live theatre, where real human beings are standing in front of real human beings, is about the fact that we have all set aside this hour; the sharing goes in both directions. The fact that it is a very physical, visceral form makes it a very different experience from almost anything else that we partake of in our lives. I don’t think we could do it the same way if we were doing literary-based theatre.
Daniel Stein (Source)
The point at which, arguably, physical theatre become distinct from pure mime is when Jean-Louis Barrault (a student of Decroux) rejected his teacher’s notion that the mime should be silent, deciding that if a mime uses their voice then they have a whole range of possibilities open to them which previously wouldn’t have existed.
This idea became known as “Total Theatre” and he advocated that no theatrical element should assume primacy over another: movement, music, visual image, and text being viewed as equally important and that each should be explored for their possibilities. Barrault was a member of Michel St. Denis’s company alongside Antonin Artaud.
Artaud has also been highly influential in shaping what has become known as physical theatre – Artaud rejected the primacy of the text and suggested a theatre in which the proscenium arch is disposed of in order to have a more direct relationship with the audience.
Physical Theatre in Eastern Culture
Eastern Theatre traditions have influenced a number of practitioners who have influenced physical theatre. A number of Oriental traditions have a high level of physical training and are highly visual. The Japanese Noh tradition, in particular, has been drawn upon a lot. Antonin Artaud was fascinated with the energy and visual nature of Balinese theatre and wrote extensively on it. Noh has been important for many practitioners including Lecoq who based his neutral mask on the calm mask of Noh. Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Jacques Copeau, and Joan Littlewood have all been consciously influenced by Noh.
Alongside contemporary western practitioners, certain Japanese Theatre Practitioners were influenced by their own traditions. Tadashi Suzuki drew partly on Noh and his highly physical training has been disseminated into the west by his students and collaborators. This has particularly happened through Ann Bogart’s Collaboration with him and the simultaneous training of her actors in both the Viewpoints method and Suzuki training.
As well as ideas outside of the western theatre tradition creeping in gradually, there is a tradition from within Western theatre too, starting with Stanislavski. Stanislavski, later on in life, began to reject his own ideas of naturalism and started to pursue ideas relating to the physical body in performance. Meyerhold and Grotowski developed these ideas and began to develop actor training that included a very high level of physical training. This work influenced and was developed further by Peter Brook.
Contemporary dance has added to this mix significantly, starting particularly with Rudolf von Laban. Laban developed a way of looking at movement outside of codified dance and was useful in looking at, and creating, movement not just for dancers but for actors too. Later on, the Tanztheater of Pina Bausch and others looked at the relationship between dance and theatre. In America, the post-modern dance movement of the Judson church also began to influence theatre practitioners, as their suggestions for movement and somatic training are equally accessible for those with dance training as those with theatre training.
