What is Physical Theatre?

All live theatre is physical in some way, but physical theatre is storytelling that predominantly uses the body to convey the moods, atmospheres and feelings of the narrative and plot of the story being told. It gives as much weight to visual, physical, musical, and non-verbal expression as it does to words. It uses movement and bodies in space as starting points.

Physical theatre is dynamic and thrilling. It takes the audience on a journey where SETTINGS, PROPS, CHARACTERS and STORYLINES are made with the performer's PHYSICAL RESOURCES.

It can be hard work, for both the audience and performer, because emerging yourself into the physical theatrical realm demands imagination and attention.

Physical theatre work can be DEVISED or SCRIPTED.

It is not dance or gymnastics. It is never movement just for the sake of movement. Every move on stage must have a purpose and communicate something to the audience. This can be plot, atmosphere, characterisation or aspects of a relationship.

The term PHYSICAL THEATRE is relatively new in theatre history, it grew in prominence from the 1980s, but the inherent skills, style and genre have a long and far reaching history.

Physical theatre has developed in many different places and from many traditional art forms. Essentially physical theatre is a form that tell stories in a physical way.

Physical theatre focuses on the ‘narrative’ – which is the telling of a story. It goes beyond just talking on stage (verbal narrative), incorporating physical and visual elements on a level at least equal to the spoken word.

It has to be more than simply abstract movement – it must include some element of character, narrative, relationships and interaction between the performers, not necessarily linear or obvious, but it is not just movement for movement’s sake.

It uses modern and contemporary music for a purpose – not just to create an atmosphere but also as a method of communicating to the audience. Music can become part of character – lyrics can express their thoughts

It includes a wide variety of styles, approaches and aesthetics – can include dance-theatre, movement theatre, clown, puppetry, mime, mask, vaudeville and circus.

What would you expect to see and hear?

Originality

Imagination

Invention

Storytelling

Powerful emotions

Relationships – destructive and supportive ones

The voice and the body given at least equal status in a performance

Clear consideration of what you want the audience to understand from your production

Naturalistic or heightened/stylised acting

Use of facial expression and/or masks and/or puppetry

Music – live or recorded – for atmosphere, or a rhythm or even to tell the story through the use of lyrics or voice-over

There is a demand on the audience to, as it were, fill in the spaces with their own imaginations. Just as some works of art, notably that from the Far East, will leave a large part of the canvas bare so that from the painted branch of cherry-blossom our minds fill in the tree, the sky, the mood, so too the Physical Theatre group will supply the images made by their bodies and the links with our own experience are filled in by ourselves. It is a two-way process. In Physical Theatre the energy created by the live relationship with an audience is essential.

For this reason I often call Physical Theatre the poetic form of theatre because, like poetry, where the poem is often a starting point for a journey into the reader’s own experience, Physical Theatre images are suggestive, not tied down by verbal or logical explanation. This is different from Naturalism where our imaginations are left sleeping, where all the details are supplied and where what is woken in the audience is satisfaction at the recognition of life or of a character’s reality. We may feel sympathy for a character on the Naturalistic stage, but we do not experience the sensory frissons, the kaleidoscope of emotions and sensations supplied to us by the best of Physical Theatre.

What does it look like?

Push Promo.mov

Push Physical Theatre Promotion Reel

Stockholm trailer by Frantic Assembly.

The story of a couple's crumbling relationship over a single night.

I saw this production - it was incredible.

Stockholm Trailer.mp4

The Tin Drum Trailer | Kneehigh.MP4

The Tin Drum

by Kneehigh Theatre

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time

What is Physical Theatre?