Examine the Role of the Chorus in Plays - Essay Example

?Examine the role of the chorus in two or more plays. Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus is a play in which chorus has a multiple and very decisive role. For example, it is the chorus that “find[s] in Oedipus an allegory of human existence” 1. The chorus sings expressing a deep philosophical insight as is seen in the following lines: Since the long days set down pains ever nearer, and you might not see anywhere that which delights, whenever someone arrives at greater than necessary: and the helper comes to all in the end, when the unhymned, unlyred, undanced lot, Hades, appears, death at the end.2 Singing this way, the chorus does the philosophizing part otherwise meant to be done by the narrator and audience. The chorus in this play, also sometimes finds it’s on self-image in the protagonist and sometimes in the audience.3 In this manner, chorus as a dramatic device, shifts its locus standi many times, sometimes standing in the shoes of the characters, sometimes the narrator and sometimes the audience. This kind of flexibility imparts the chorus possibilities that make it an effective linking device throughout the play. Travis has also observed that in this play, it is through the chorus that the author “allegorizes […] the self’s relation to maternal body”.4 The longing of the self to return to the safety of the maternal body and the violation of nature that is manifested in such a longing is understood and warned against by the chorus in this play. This can be seen when the chorus sings, “I warn thee, trespass not Within this hallowed spot…”5 By putting these words into the mouth of the chorus, the author has made them similar to the prophets who appear in Greek classics, giving away great clues into what is to come and what is to expect. From these characteristics of Sophocles’ chorus, it can be concluded that this author has given the chorus a great responsibility to take forward the happenings inside the play. In other words, the role of the chorus is very active. They are not mere spectators who observe and remarks upon the events but wise interpreters who can foresee the future and judge the present. In the play, Medea, written by Euripides, on the other hand, the chorus is expressing rather a single view point, the ““normal” human reaction” to the events being played out.6 It has also been observed that “one thing which the chorus can often be assumed to reflect is the more literal-minded, unoriginal, and often questionable opinions, on both philosophical and moral questions, characteristic of fifth-century Athenians.”7 And another unique feature of the chorus of Euripides in Medea has been that it is made up of only women.8 This is very important for this play as its theme is related to a “male-female conflict.”9 In the initial stages of the plot, the chorus is seen aligning with Medea but when Medea decides to kill her children, the chorus leaves behind the affinity to her, thereby showing how the collective mind of the chorus is close to the ““normal” human reaction.”10 Until quitting her side, the chorus is justifying Medea’s “vengeance” and singing, “It is men’s counsels which are treacherous; their pledges by the gods which stay not fast.”11 Once the chorus knows of the plan of Medea to kill her children, “they plead with Medea to drop her plan.”12 Using the chorus, the author has been observed to have raised considerably the pathos of the situation in which the mother kills her children.13 The gender role played by the chorus is also obvious when it takes sides with Medea.14 All the same, the empathies of the chorus with Medea is limited to the point where her decisions do not go beyond lamenting that is naturally expected of a wome in a patriarchal society. For example, the chorus can be seen advising Medea to reconcile with the gender injustice that she was facing.15 It sings: If your husband has gone to adore A new bride in his bed, why, this Has often happened before. Do not harrow your soul. For Zeus Will succor your cause. What use To lessen your life with grief For a lost lord?16 In general, the chorus in Euripides’ play is just a group of ordinary onlookers who have no in depth knowledge of human affairs and who can be swayed easily. They seem to pity Medea but do not support any radical action from her side. They are the mediocre, orthodox general public and they have nothing much to contribute to the theme or content of the play. But they rather have another role by which they “relax tension” and finds and reinforces the “contemplative and associative aspect of the choral role” and also reminds the audience of “its own role as interpreter.”17 While comparing these two plays, it can be derived that while in Oedipus in Colonus, Sophocles gives the chorus a very important role in the turn of events, in Medea, Euripides limits the role of the chorus to that of an onlooker and a peacemaker for the audience. The chorus in Oedipus at Colonus also is more intellectual and wise than that in Medea. This is evident when the chorus philosophizes that “if guile with guile contend, Bane, not blessing, is the end…”18 But while making this kind of a comparison between the texts, it has to be kept in mind that Sophocles and Euripides were contemporaries and hence the form of the chorus in both play wrights’ plays might possibly be having more similarities than differences. This is so because in those days, the form-related features of a play rather fixed and set against certain classical standards.19 Generally, the observed similarities between the chorus of Sophocles and Euripides have been features of “fifth century tragic chorus, such as diminution in number of stasima and encroachment of shared lyric or aria upon choral lyric”.20 But the basic difference has been that “Sophoclean chorus [is] […] more […] grounded in the situation of the play, the Euripidean chorus […] more aloof or approaching the point from a more circuitous route.”21 Aristotle had succeeded Sophocles and Euripides in history and he had defined chorus as a “musical dance ensemble (symphonia) that sometimes differs in form, but not in matter.”22 He has elaborated on the concept of chorus in his work, Poetics, as given below: The Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the action, in the manner not of Euripides but of Sophocles. As for the later poets, their choral songs pertain as little to the subject of the piece as to that of any other tragedy. They are, therefore, sung as mere interludes- a practice first begun by Agathon. Yet what difference is there between introducing such choral interludes, and transferring a speech, or even a whole act, from one play to another.23 As per the explanation given by Aristotle, the choruses in both Oedipus at Colonus and Medea are “tragic chorus[es]” which are choruses “of nobles.”24 Aristotle while suggesting that the chorus should act not as it acted in Medea, but as in Oedipus at Colonus, is actually referring to their ability to rise above to being mere interludes and become part of the action.25 With respect to the chorus in Sophocles’ plays, Aristotle has stated that “Sophocles […] departed much from the ancient nature of the tragic chorus.”26 In other words, Sophocles can be viewed as experimenting with this dramatic tool. In Sophocles’ plays, including Oedipus at Colonus, the nature of the chorus has been described as follows, “In his plays, the chorus never sustains the first part; misfortunes never affect the chorus itself, but it is always united in the bonds of friendship with the first character of the play; hence it does not exhibit those violent feelings”27 that were exhibited by it in early plays. This approach in depicting chorus has been seen as the ideal one by Aristotle.28 In this manner, Aristotle has supported a wise chorus that has a power of its own inside the realm of the play as is there in Sophocles’ plays.29 But Aristotle has found the plays of Euripides rather weak on the side of chorus as their choruses are just ordinary onlookers or providers of interludes irrelevant to the subject of the play.30 It can be assumed from this discussion that while Sophocles tried to improvise upon the prevalent notions about this dramatic tool, Euripides remained to see it just as an ingredient rather related to form than content. While moving on to modern dramaturgy, it can be seen that many modern adaptations of chorus have been experimented with by play wrights like Berthold Brecht and Ola Rotimi. A comparison of chorus between the Greek classical period and the modern scenario could become far-stretched as there is a great divide between them with respect to the purpose and ethos. In the play, Antigone, by Brecht, the chorus is seen asking questions related to the economic and political theory that underlies the class hierarchy and Brecht’s class-based interpretation of this play.31 Hence the chorus here becomes a pointer for the audience to look deeper into the existing social dynamics and to question it. But just as Aristotle envisaged, in this modern context also, the chorus becomes a major ‘actor’ in the play through this complex transformation.32 It has been observed about the chorus in Brecht’s Antigone that “this chorus of collaborators, despite moments of ethical doubt, […] is arguably almost responsible for the play’s outcome” owing to its association with the leading character.”33 In the conclusion of the play, the chorus is depicted as helpless followers of their leader into total “destruction.”34 They are rendered powerless by their own ideological limitations. The use of chorus by Brecht to teach the audience has been criticized also by alleging that it was an instance of “aggressive acting” that could crush the audience under it.35 Meanwhile in the play, The Gods Are Not to Blame, an adaptation by Ola Rotimi, the chorus as such has been banished from the story and it is the narrator and another group of people who take on the role.36 This conscious abandonment of the chorus from the play could be explained by the limitations of the traditional form and purpose of a chorus. The chorus could no more remain a homogeneous group in the modern era where sub-cultural identities go on emerging and growing. In such a setting, the socio-political identity of the chorus cannot be left ambiguous as it could be in the period of Sophocles and Euripides. But many performances of this play still gave centrality to the narrator or the group that represented the chorus.37 What Brecht and Rotimi have been doing by adapting ancient Greek classic drama into the modern era can be seen as “canonical counter-discourse” against “authority” and related value system.38 In a “canonical counter-discourse”, the very same “terms of the canon are mobilized to challenge the authority and the values that those terms normally articulate.”39 This is how Brecht utilized a chorus of nobles in Antigone, to show the limitations of an upper class world view.40 This chorus stands for everything that is orthodox and in favor of the establishment.41 But still the course of events raises the class consciousness of the chorus and eventually they are turned into a group that does occasional self-introspection.42 On the other hand, Rotimi’s play has been understood as a negotiation to gain “independence from the European canon.”43 In a counter-discourse to colonialism as well as its critique, Rotimi has said: No, no! Do not the blame the gods. Let no one blame the powers. My people, learn from my fall. The powers would have failed if I did not let them use me. They knew my weakness: the weakness of a man easily moved to the defense of his tribe against others.44 The incompatibility of the Greek ethos with the African ethos has been overcome in this new reading of the old classics through creating a new canon that has more flexibility than the existing one.45 Such a canon provides enough space for modern political thought yet retaining the basic human ethos of these plays. Especially, in the case of The Gods Are Not to Blame, it is pointed out: The play relates to the canon by means of a relationship that is not already dictated by the canon and which is figured instead by the Yoruba model of destiny and its inherent flexibility. This destiny is certainly flexible enough to stand outside of the European canon and to provide a wholesale alternative to the canon’s most powerful account of how it and all other cultural traditions are perpetuated.46 In this manner, it is through culture, that this play develops a new flexible canon whereas in Brecht, a new canon evolves out of the Marxian reading of the European canon, focused on the class dynamics. The chorus becomes the most effective tool in this canon creation in both cases. When viewed from a historical perspective, chorus can thus be considered as a dramatic element that is capable of preserving as well as creating canons by providing the ‘other view’. This basic role has remained constant in ancient and modern times. Bibliography Aristotle, Poetics, Trans.S.H. Butcher, retrieved 20 April 2012, http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.2.2.html#312 B. Brecht, Antigone, Hal Leonard Corp, Milwaukee, 1991. D.J. Mastronarde, The art of Euripides: dramatic technique and social context, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010. Euripides, J.Morwood, Medea and other plays, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998 J.R.Darley and Aristotle, The Grecian drama: a treatise on the dramatic literature of the Greeks, Hardy & Walker, California, 1840. E.A. McDermott, Euripides’ Medea: the incarnation of disorder, Penn State Press, Pennsylvania, 1989. E.B. Mee and H.P. Foley, Antigone on the contemporary world stage, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2011. H.A. Kelly, Ideas and forms of tragedy from Aristotle to the middle ages, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993. J.N.J. Okafor, ‘Strengths and weaknesses of Ola Rotimi’s adaptation of Oedipus Rex for the African theatre in The Gods are Not to Blame’, African Research Review, vol.3, no.5, 2009. K.Brenton, ‘Acts of war’, 24 November 2000, retrieved 19 April 2012, from http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/inside/articles/acts-war L. Hardwick and C. Gillespie, Classics in post-colonial worlds, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007. O. Rotimi, The gods are not to blame, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1971 R. McConnochie, ‘Three Antigone plays’, Centre for Performance Studies, Sydney, University of Sydney, 1995. R.Travis, Allegory and the tragic chorus in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, Rowman & Littlefield, Maryland, 1999. Sophocles and F. Storr, Oedipus at Colonus, Digireads.com Publishing, Kansas, 2009. The Nation, Volume 103, Nation Company, New York, 1916. Read More