‘Living pictures’, or tableaux vivants, is a form typical of 19th- and early 20th-century theatre. Tableaux were performed by groups of actors dressed in period clothing and posing motionless on the stage for several minutes. Usually, tableaux re-enacted paintings or sculptures; they could also be used to close a theatrical performance, with the actors becoming motionless against the backdrop of the closing curtain. Photographs of tableaux were also circulated as postcards.
Living pictures were much liked by managing director Paweł Ratajewicz. Lublin audiences were able to see not just the “static” tableaux, but also their moving versions – “pictures in motion”, such as Highway Robbery, Robert the Devil, Midnight Robbers, or “dancing pictures”, such as an arrangement of four Fat Thursday tableaux: Fat Thursday in the Country, Fat Thursday in the City, Fat Thursday in the Old Days, Fat Thursday Today.
