The Greek Chorus

Chorus, in drama and music, those who perform vocally in a group as opposed to those who perform singly. The chorus in Classical Greek drama was a group of actors who described and commented upon the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation. Greek tragedy had its beginnings in choral performances, in which a group of 50 men danced and sang dithyrambs—lyric hymns in praise of the god Dionysus. In the middle of the 6th century BC, the poet Thespis reputedly became the first true actor when he engaged in dialogue with the chorus leader. Choral performances continued to dominate the early plays until the time of Aeschylus (5th century BC), who added a second actor and reduced the chorus from 50 to 12 performers. Sophocles, who added a third actor, increased the chorus to 15 but reduced it to a mainly commentarial role in most of his plays (for an example of this role as shown in the play Oedipus the King, see video) . The chorus in Greek comedy numbered 24, and its function was displaced eventually by interspersed songs. The distinction between the passivity of the chorus and the activity of the actors is central to the artistry of the Greek tragedies. While the tragic protagonists act out their defiance of the limits subscribed by the gods for man, the chorus expresses the fears, hopes, and judgment of the polity, the average citizens. Their judgment is the verdict of history

The Greek Chorus

Role of The Greek Chorus

Early Introduction

The Greek Chorus was used in plays for several reasons:

• The Chorus served as the link between the play and the people watching the play.
• They would illustrate the story through straight narration, or from commentary they openly discussed as the play commenced.
• The chorus would also sing songs called odes, which were unrelated to the play.

• The Greek Chorus was a tool used by the Greek playwrights in their ancient plays.
• Compiled of up to 50 people, the Chorus was used to illustrate the story of the play to the audience better.
• The Greek chorus was the beginning of what evolved into the modern day choruses we see in musicals and plays today.

Little bit of history

Sophocles and The Greek Chorus

Evolution of The Chorus

• The role of a chorus is still used today, mostly in musicals.
• Today, more choruses use roles in the show to blend into a scene.
• Like the greeks, modern day producers use choruses to illustrate emotion.

• Sophocles was the inventor of the small Greek Chorus, where instead of having up to 50 members, the choruses in his plays were a group of only 15 people plus 3 actors.
• With a smaller group, the chorus was able to play as an ensemble in a show.

As the importance of the actors increased, the choral odes became fewer in number and tended to have less importance in the plot, until at last they became mere decorative interludes separating the acts. During the Renaissance the role of the chorus was revised. In the drama of Elizabethan England, for instance, the name chorus designated a single person, often the speaker of the prologue and epilogue, as in Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus.

In musicals, the chorus, a group of players whose song and dance routines usually reflect and enhance the development of the plot, became increasingly more prominent during the 20th century. During the late Victorian era, musical comedy was characterized by thin plot, characters, and setting, the main attraction being the song and dance routines, comedy, and line of chorus girls. Their performances provided an extravagant bonus at the beginnings and ends of songs or special dance numbers, and they were considered flashy. As musicals developed, however, more attention was given to integrating their various elements. In the mid-1920s, song and dance numbers began to stem more naturally from the plot, and the chorus danced more than it sang. The dancing itself soon developed from the lines of synchronized leg kicking of the early 1900s into highly sophisticated ballet and modern dance.

https://www.britannica.com/art/chorus-theatre

Modern Chorus in classic tragedy