FREE ESSAY ON THE GREEK CHORUS

THE GREEK CHORUS

Greek tragedy and comedy originated with the chorus, the most important part of the
performance space was the orchestra, which means 'a place for dancing' (orchesis). A
typical tragic Greek chorus was a group of some twelve to fifteen masked men just about
to enter military service after some years of training (Athenians were taught to sing and
dance from a very early age.) An old comedic chorus consisted of up to twenty four men.
The effort of dancing and singing through three tragedies and a satyr play was likened to
that of competing in the Olympic Games. Like in Elizabethan theatre, the men portrayed
women. They made the transitions between scenes, giving actors the chance to enter and
leave the playing area, and announced what characters those actors portrayed. But the
function of the chorus goes beyond this. The choral odes, accompanied by dancing and
music, were part of the entertainment itself. The chorus both commented on the events and
participated in them, so that it was both involved in the action and detached from it.
There was a choral leader who led the group, and as theatre developed, who conversed with
the actor or actors.
In the mid-fifth century, after rebuilding the ruins of the Acropolis, Pericles built a
recital-hall or odeion to the east of the Acropolis. This building was roughly square in
shape with a roof described as pyramidal or conical. The Odeion of Pericles was used for
many purposes, one being the proagon, a ceremony in which the dramatic poets announced
the titles of their plays and introduced their actors. Members of the chorus would wait
in the Odeion to make their entrance.
The fifth-century skene was not a permanent building, but a temporary construction of
wood, placed across the rear of the orchestral circle for the dramatic performances at
each year's festival. Nevertheless its invention brought about a massive change in
theatrical practice and in the semiotics of space. The interior of this flat-roofed
building was the 'backstage' area, but in visual terms it was not so much 'behind' as
'within', an enclosed space which, like a real house, was the dominion of female
characters. As a rule, actors could and did step out of the skene and join the chorus in
the orchestra, but the chorus did not enter the skene. 
The masks of Greek Old Comedy were distorted caricatures, sometimes of real people. They
were meant to be ugly and silly in keeping with the ludicrous padded costumes worn by
comic actors. While tragic actors wore elaborate pattern-woven garments which were
similar to the robes of priests and musicians, comic actors wore loose body stockings
padded at the breast, buttocks, and stomach, with long floppy phalluses for the male
characters. The chorus of Old Comedy was often composed of non-human creatures, such as
wasps, frogs, birds, or even clouds.