What is the English word for "tableau" in the context of the theatre?

Question

This question was initially posted on ell.stackexchange.com but was poorly received, perhaps I'll have better luck here.

In French theater (at least in the 19th century, I'm not talking about classical theatre), a play is divided into acts, each act is divided into tableaux, and each tableau is divided into scènes.

See for example the first page of this play by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet:

Acte Premier, Premier Tableau, Scène première

A tableau is characterized by the fact that characters can enter and leave (it's made up of several scènes), but the setting doesn't change, i.e. the unity of place is respected. How do you translate the word "tableau" in this sense in English, or do you simply borrow it from French?

Note that I'm not referring to tableau vivant (which is a particular type of scene where actors stand still to imitate a painting).

French	English
pièce de théâtre	(stage) play
acte	act
tableau	?
scène	(French) scene
tableau vivant	tableau

Answer 1

Most likely, English translations would use the French term 'tableau'.

Oscar G. Brockett's History of the Theatre (eighth edition, Allyn and Bacon, 1999) does not mention the term "tableau" anywhere, i.e. not in connection with Alexandre Dumas père's plays, nor elsewhere. This 700-page book's index has no entries for "act", "scene" or "tableau"; it has an entry for "tableau vivant", but as the question already pointed out, that is a different concept.

J. A. Cuddon's Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (third edition, Penguin, 1991) has entries for "act", "scene", "tableau" and "tableau vivant". The entries for "act" and "scene" make no mention of "tableau". The entry for "tableau" says,

Primarily a theatrical term, though deriving from graphic art. Current from the 19th c. and frequently used in stage productions in 19th c. plays. To create a tableau actors took up positions and held them until the curtain came down or applause finished. Sometimes, when the curtain went up again, the actors would be regrouped into another tableau. (…)

If the above sounds strange, it is important to be aware that realism had only begun to be introduced in the 1830s, not all that long before the theatre versions of The Count of Monte Cristo (1848–1851). Brockett writes (page 341):

Prior to 1830, French actors tended to form a straight line or semicircle at the front of the stage near the prompter's box, (…). Contrary to earlier practices, Hugo utilized the entire stage space, replaced the usual long diagonal movements with short curved movements, and even occasionally had an actor play a scene with his back to the audience. By 1835 critics were noticing that in the boulevard theatres actors sometimes sat on the arms of chairs, leaned on tables, or remained seated while speaking. (…) Those [directors] who did move toward greater lifelikeness met considerable opposition from critics, who argued that art should idealize rather than copy life.

The next entry in Cuddon's dictionary of literary terms is "tableaux vivants", which he defines as "A development of the tableau (q.v.) in the theatre of the 19th C. (…)".

Clearly, the definitions by Cuddon cited above don't refer to a division of an act.

G. Vapereau's Dictionnaire universel des littérature (Paris: Hachette, 1876; volume 2) defines tableau as follows:

terme de théâtre. C'est le nom donné à certaines divisions d'une pièce, qui ne suspendent pas l'action comme le font les actes et les entr'actes. Elles sont marquées par un changement à vue de lieu et de décoration. (…)

Translation [1]:

Theatrical term. It is the name given to certain divisions in a play that do not interrupt the action as acts and entr'actes do. They are marked by a visual change of location and scenery.

In English, "scene" does not imply a change of location and scenery; it is simply a subdivision of an act. (The location can change, but it doesn't need to.) For this reason, "scene" is not an exact equivalent of "tableau" in a play where the scene is already a subdivision of a "tableau". For this reason, an English translation of Dumas's Monte-Cristo plays would most likely retain the French term "tableau", in spite of the other meaning of the term that is cited above.

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[1] Don't try to translate Vapereau's definition with Google Translate.

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Lambie commented on 08.08.2024:

Tableau is setting, not a subdivision. Look at the text in the OP's question: Setting: Bridge of The Pharaon, View of Marseille in perspective. The mistake people are making here is thinking that tableau is a division within an act. It's a description of the location of the action.

Lambie commented on 17.08.2024:

That play says: Tableau followed by: Le pont du Pharaon, En perspective la ville de Marseille. I would call that Setting. The French have no specific word for a setting.

In other words, "tableau" is not a subdivision of the act. Let's look at the acts, tableaux and scenes in Dumas's play Monte-Cristo (première partie):

• Acte premier
  • Premier tableau
    • Scène première
    • Scène II
    • Scène III
    • Scène IV
    • Scène V
  • Deuxième tableau
    • Scène première
    • Scène II
    • Scène III
    • Scène IV
    • Scène V
    • Scène VI
    • Scène VII
  • Troisème tableau
    • Scène première
    • Scène II
    • Scène III
    • Scène IV
• Acte deuxième
  • Quatrième tableau
    • Scène première
    • Scène II
    • Scène III
    • Scène IV
    • Scène V
    • Scène VI
    • Scène VII
    • Scène VIII
    • Scène IX
  • Cinquième tableau
    • Scène première
    • …

The setting only changes between tableaux, not between scenes, but the scene numbering starts from one with each new tableau, which is why I treat "scène" in this play as a subdivision of "tableau". In English plays, there are no rules about when the setting can change: it can change between acts or between scenes, so there is no direct correspondence with the way Dumas uses "tableau".

Answer 2

In classical French theatre, a play (pièce de théâtre) is divided into acts (actes), and the acts are divided into scenes (scènes.) Between each act, the curtain falls, allowing for an optional change of scenery. The scenes take place in the same location and the transition from one scene to another is marked by the entrance or exit of a character. The play unfolds chronologically.

In more modern theatre, a scène has less constraints and the new notion of tableau, which is even more flexible, has been added.

A tableau is another subdivision of an act (or of a whole play if it mentions no acts) that allows a change of situation without an entracte. It can be a change of place, of time, or both. What is also permitted with a tableau breaking with classical theatre is a momentary return to the past, a flashback.

Here are two definitions of tableau from the Littré, the one relevant here being #11 (bold mine):

• 11 Subdivision des actes de certains ouvrages dramatiques, qui répond à un changement de décoration ; division d'un drame, d'une féerie, etc.
• 12 Terme de théâtre. Groupement de personnages qui sont exposés quelques instants aux yeux des spectateurs. Le père étend les bras et bénit ses enfants : tableau. Terme de danse. Se dit de certaines positions ou attitudes.

In summary, there is a clear hierarchy:

1. Pièce de théâtre: A collection of actes.
2. Acte: A collection of tableaux if used otherwise a collection of scènes. Between two actes is an entracte (intermission). The setting usually changes during the entracte.
3. Tableau: A collection of scènes. The setting changes between tableaux but there is no entracte. The audience sees the set of the play being changed.
4. Scène: Whatever happens on stage. The entrance or exit of a character often mark the transition from one scène to the next but it is not mandatory. The set of the play stays static.

As acte and scène are already borrowed almost identically from French into English, I don't think it would be necessary to try and find another word than 'tableau' to say it in English, especially when referring to French plays. The fact that 'tableau' is already used to translate tableau vivant (definition #12 above) might not create enough ambiguity to justify it. French uses the same word tableau for both of them without confusing anyone, and tableau has a dozen other definitions.

The Grand dictionnaire terminologique of the Office Québécois de la langue française recommends to keep tableau in English like it is done here:

and here:

Both examples above show that tableau has already been borrowed, even in a play that has no relationship with French theatre¹. If a specifically English word really has to be chosen, I would nevertheless suggest 'setting' like it was done in this play (Comyns Carr's Revival of "Oliver Twist"):

Note: The Count of Monte Cristo first tableau reads: Le pont du Pharaon, en perspective le port de Marseille (The Pharaon deck. In sight, the port of Marseille.) Here pont means the deck of the Pharaon, the three-masted ship on which Edmond Dantès arrives in Marseille.

¹ _{@Lambie disputes that fact telling Stevenson was an "absolutist francophile", but who is not ? ;-)
PS: Feel free to correct my English.}

Answer 3

I support @Tsundoku's proposal to borrow the word 'tableau' in this case (although I am sceptical of Oscar Brockett's quotation, which as @Lambie pointed out describes a tableau vivant). Indeed, many translators have made this choice in the past, here are just two examples:

• Theodora: A Drama In Five Acts And Eight Tableau (1885) translated from the play by Victorien Sardou,
• The Tower of Nesle: A Play in Five Acts and in Nine Tableaux (1906) based on the work of Alexandre Dumas (the last scene of the play is Act V, Tableau IX, Scene V),

and at least one British author for an original work:

• Deacon Brodie, or The Double Life: A Melodrama In Five Acts And Eight Tableaux (1884) by William Ernest Henley (the last scene of the play is Act V, Tableau VIII, Scene VII).

Note, however, that in the case of a play divided into actes and tableaux (rather than into actes, tableux and scènes) such as Ionesco's Rhinocéros or Simone de Beauvoir's Who Shall Die, the common translation is 'act' for 'acte' and 'scene' for 'tableau'.

Answer 4

From film theory, there is the "sequence" which might correspond with the tableaux. It is a collection of "scenes", which in turns consists of "cuts".

Another explanation could be a "set" maybe? Both like in "a collection of scenes" and also like in "setting on the stage" (walls, props and stuff, like in "film set").

Actually, I am not aware of an in-between category in theatre theory in other languages. There is only play, act, scene to describe its structure.

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Edit:

I think "Scenery" is the term. If you check the picture in the fr.wikipedia, there is a numbered list of them given (in the lower third, starting with "1. ROCKS AND FLYING ISLAND". And the line above says in english even, "Order of the scenery..." (that is a quote, not my translation).

It describes the location the plot is supposed to be played in. Like in your given picture it says (hard to read, but if you squint a lot...): "Premier Tableau. .... Ex perspective [="exterior/outside view"], le port de N[??]ville". Meaning scenery one is a set showing some kind of harbor/port landscape.

Answer 5

Plays written in English are generally divided into just "acts" and "scenes", with no 3rd level of subdivision. "Scenes" in English would correspond to what are called "tableaux" in French -- there's no restriction about characters entering or leaving the stage during a "scene". Borrowing the word "tableau" from French for this purpose would probably not be understood.

The phrase "French scene" is also used, meaning the same thing as "scène" in French, but it's a fairly technical term that might not be familiar outside the theater

Answer 6

There is no single translation in cases like this. Only translation solutions, which take into account overall context and style tegarding how plays are printed on paper. It should be remembered that this one is 19th c.

Dictionnaire de l'Académie:

Here are the definitions in French:
1.

Tableau Il se dit, en termes de Théâtre, d’une Division de l’acte, marquée par le changement de décor. Drame en cinq actes et huit tableaux.

l'académie]1

(Translation: It is used in theater for a division in an act where there is a change of scenery. [for example] A play in five acts and eight scenes. Usually, in English, if there is a change of scenery, there is a new scene).

2. Larousse Dictionary (monolingual)
Théâtre

17. Subdivision d'un acte, marqué par un changement de décor. (Translation: Subdivision of an act marked by a change of scenery).

Larousse

3.

Tableau Division d'un texte dramatique ou scénique, fondée sur un changement d'espace ou d'espace-temps. Constitue une alternative à l'acte ou à la scène (voir ces mots). Bertolt Brecht a revalorisé ce type de découpage (ex : Mère Courage, en 12 tableaux). Pavis 1987, p. 381-382; Ubersfeld 1996, p. 80-81.

(Translation: Division of a play (script) or scenario (film) based on a change of space or space-time.) Bertold Brecht rehabilitated this type of division (i.e. in Mother Courage, in 12 scenes. It's an alternative to act or scene.)

Glossaire du théâtre Par André G. Bourassa. Soutien multimédia, François Bourassa. University of Montréal théâtre

Bilingual Larousse French>English Larousse: Tableau [in] théâtre = scene [There it is.]
tableau de service [répétitions] rehearsal roster
[représentations] performances roster
tableau vivant tableau vivant

français-anglais

So, in French, all the definitions agree that this means a scene with no change of scenery (which provides a setting for a scene or even an entire play.) That is the same in English, basically. A change of scenery will give rise to a new scene. However, here, in Le Comte de Monte Cristo, the word tableau appears above the numbering of the scenes. Also, it describes the actual setting of what comes after it.

The order of the terms in Le Comte de Monte Cristo is:

ACTE PREMIER Premier Tableau - Le Pont du Pharaon. En perspective, le port de Marseille SCENE PREMIERE

1. So the translation would read:
   Act I
   Scene 1
   SETTING: The Poop Deck of the Pharaon. In perspective, the city of Marseille OR,
2. it can be left out, as one would not want to repeat the word scene:

So the translation would read: Act I
Scene 1 - The Poop Deck of the Pharaon. In perspective, the city of Marseille This latter uses the Larousse translation, followed by the location (setting).

See the Standard Way to mention setting The Standard Way of putting in Setting in a play I was unable to do the spacing on this properly.
ACT I
Scene 1
SETTING: We are in the basement of the BRADLEYSON home, a nice looking house in a residential area of the Twin Cities. The basement, however, hints at a more sinister story. [...]

Also, we can see here where tableau would be scene, straight up:

• Crépuscule du théâtre : pièce en trois actes et huit tableaux... [Paris, Théâtre des Arts, 14 décembre 1934] / H.-R. Lenormand Texte imprimé

• (Translation: Dawn of the Theater: A play in three acts and eight scenes). Dawn of the Theater

There is an entire history of how a tableau in French, which also means a painting, came to mean scene (something you see, like in a painting or the top of a hill). Indeed, landscape paintings (tableaux) are of scenes (country scenes, for instance), which are static, like the scenery or settings in 19 c. theater (I am not referring to staging revolutionaries like Ariadne Mnouchkine!). Larousse has an entire article on Italian landscape painting that goes into this in detail. Here's is just a taste of that article:

Le décor de théâtre et la peinture de paysages composés présentent de nombreux et indiscutables rapports. Les villes imaginaires d’Antoine Caron, les ports de mer de Claude Lorrain et tous les tableaux d’architectures composées de Patel à Cocorrante, de Pannini à Hubert Robert se présentent comme autant de décors, encadrés souvent de « portants » comme à la scène : arbres ou colonnes, tours ou roches. D’ailleurs, beaucoup de peintres de décors sont aussi peintres de perspectives ou de paysages composés, dans le genre noble ou bien rustique, tels Servandoni ou Boucher.

Translation: Theatrical scenery and composed landscape paintings have many indisputable relationships. The imaginary towns of Antoine Caron, the seaports of Claude Lorrrain and all the composed architectural paintings from Patel to Cocorrant and Pannini to Hubert Robert are presented like so much theatrical scenery. And they are often have "uprights or supports" like on stage: trees or columns and towers or rocks. Also, many scenery painters such as Servandoni or Boucher, are also painters of landscape views or composed landscapes, in the noble or rustic genre.

The Painter-Decorators of the Theater

In sum, un tableau is a scene (Larousse translation) but in situ in a play one might want to use setting or not translate it if it appears alongside the word scène, as a numbered scene in a play. The word tableau, short for tableau vivant, in English is taking positions on a stage and not moving. Like a painting or photograph.

[décor is scenery, not setting, like painted flats, lighting, furniture, and so forth. In French, setting as place is cadre (not used in theatre), or lieu, also not used in theater, except in unité de lieu, which probably indirectly explains why tableau is used as it is in this renditions off Le comte de Monte Cristo . The location of the action on a painted flat. French does not have a word for setting per se as used in English (all varieties) theater and film to mean the location of act/scene either painted on flats/built up on a stage or where the shooting for a film takes place.]

Email from the RobertLouisStevenson.org association to me:

What an interesting enquiry! I see that Deacon Brodie is divided into Acts, Tableaux and Scenes, the Tableaux are parts of the action in the same place (i.e. with the same scenery), while each Scene is in the same place but with the entry of some new character or characters (and perhaps the exit of others before). This type of scene division is typical of the published texts of French theatre and it's sometimes called a 'French scene'.

The online Trésor de la langue française defines 'tableau' as 'Subdivision d'une pièce marquée par un changement à vue de décor'—so with rapid scene changes without a curtain drop and this might have been the style of production of DB.

For his other plays, it seems Stevenson uses one set of scenery for each act and divides each act into 'French' scenes that, as for DB, mark the arrival or departure of characters.

Stevenson read and attended numerous French plays and several times mentioned Musset as a favourite French dramatist.

(As I said above, he borrowed this and got this from the French).

Example of tableau not translated: Compare the translation into English of the first page of Massenet's Manon above to this one. They did not translate the word tableau.

MANON {Ed. 2540] Opera in Five Acts, Music by Jules Massenet, Libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, English Translation by George and Phyllis Mead, copyright 1963 (G. Schirmer's Collection of Opera Librettos, After the Novel by the Abbe Prevost)