Abstract
Possibly the most problematic aspect of acting Greek tragedy, the chorus represents a recurring challenge to contemporary actors and theatre-makers. When staging the chorus, today’s actors are likely to be perplexed by the conundrum of how much ‘like a character’ the chorus is meant to be, especially in relation to the conventions of modern realist theatre. This chapter re-frames this question in terms of contemporary practice, identifying how a range of key international practitioners (Katie Mitchell and Struan Leslie; Włodzimierz Staniewski) have developed differently calibrated combinations of physical and psychological presence, realist characterization, and transformative choreography or musicality. Acting Chorus finally proposes that these alternatives must be uniquely and perpetually negotiated by each group that embarks upon the work of becoming a Greek chorus.
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Notes
- 1.
For an overview of productions of Greek tragedy at the National Theatre (UK), see https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/exhibit/wRnC0fJ0 (viewed 10 February 2018).
- 2.
See Dunbar (2013) on connections between ancient choruses and musical theatre.
- 3.
See further http://www.yfarber.com/molora/ (viewed 1 February 2018).
- 4.
On pre-theatrical choruses’ pragmatic, religious, and social roles, see Calame (125–53).
- 5.
The cultural value placed upon chorality was such that even the vehemently anti-theatrical Plato advocated (non-dramatic) choral practices as a route to individual and collective wellbeing. See Plato’s Laws (II.350, 654b, 665a, 672e). Goldhill vigorously renders one of the ancient philosopher’s comments on the subject as ‘no chorus, no culture!’ (48).
- 6.
The rise of the individual, professional actor in Hellenistic theatre (see Chap. 2) provides important context for Aristotle’s injunction—as well as Horace’s in Ars Poetica (Billings, 133)—that the chorus should be viewed as another actor in the plot.
- 7.
For a fuller account of interactions between tragedy and democracy, see Cartledge (1997).
- 8.
This militarist flavour may have been enhanced, as the fifth century progressed, by the custom of displaying tribute from Athens’ subject states prior to dramatic performances. During the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE), young men whose fathers had died in battle would also be presented with full military kit, provided at the city’s expense, at the same moment (Hall, 24).
- 9.
See, for example, Hall (2010, 67–8).
- 10.
It was the German philosopher, August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845), influenced by his brother Friedrich’s preoccupation with transcendental idealism, who identified the chorus as an ‘ideal spectator’ (1894, 78). In nineteenth-German theatre aesthetics, the chorus became a reflective and lofty presence who served as an intermediary on an audience’s behalf—an interpretation which continues to influence modern notions of the chorus.
- 11.
See further Harrop (132).
- 12.
- 13.
See further Fischer-Lichte (2013, 78–9).
- 14.
Seaford (2006) offers an extended scholarly discourse on interpretations of Dionysian mythology and religious practice in ancient theatre.
- 15.
While the convergence of intercultural performance practices towards the creation of chorus is impossible to discuss at any length within this chapter, some milestone examples may be suggestive. Parallels between Japanese Noh Theatre and Greek tragedy were made clear in Tadashi Suzuki’s Kabuki- and Noh-style re-imaginings in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as in Yukio Ninagawa’s all-male staging of Medea (1984). In the early 1990s, Ariane Mnouchkine and Théâtre du Soleil’s epic inter-cultural experiment with Indian Kathakali theatre and forms of Japanese theatre was used to powerful effect in Les Atrides. Mnouchkine’s work challenges political hegemony; the chorus actors immerse themselves in cross-cultural work to destabilize the cultural dominance of any one approach. Similarly, though with a core purpose of placing dance and song at the centre of the Greek tragedy, Thiasos Theatre has successfully blended Balinese Topeng dance and mask work.
- 16.
However, the likeness is not complete. As Helen Eastman explains, a chorus is ‘a group on stage working as one unit, bound by either shared movement, voice, characterization, or text, where they represent not individual characters but a group’ (2013, 367), while ensemble actors do not necessarily (or solely) inhabit group identities in performance.
- 17.
- 18.
For both Leslie and Mitchell, the physicalization of the actor’s character, based on prompting instinctive feelings, draws on readings of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio.
- 19.
The National Theatre (UK) production of Antigone (directed by Polly Findlay in 2012) comparably reimagined the play’s chorus as a core (all male) staff of government functionaries and employees bunkered down in their command control office. Each chorus member had a clear individual identity, and status, in relation to this re-contextualized setting, but also participated in moments of stylized choreographic movement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quLkooLxsO4 (viewed 16 April 2018).
- 20.
See further http://gardzienice.org/en/home.html (viewed 16 April 2018).
- 21.
In Gardzienice’s responses to Greek plays, an ecstatic dance language based on ancient cheironomia (the formal communicative gestures said to be depicted in vase paintings) is often utilized. For an extended discussion of this aspect of the work, see Zarifi (389–96).
- 22.
Compare Laera’s account of Rimini Protokoll’s 2010 Prometheus in Athens, which similarly places real citizens, and their responses to divisive issues, centre-stage (265–76).
- 23.
For a fuller discussion of site-specific aspects of The Red Ladies’ work, see Willson and Eastman (424–7).
- 24.
Complicité publishes teaching materials which cover this topic. See http://www.complicite.org/media/1439372000Complicite_Teachers_pack.pdf (viewed 10 February 2018).
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Dunbar, Z., Harrop, S. (2018). Acting Chorus. In: Greek Tragedy and the Contemporary Actor. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95471-4_7
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