Bursting the Grape - The Chorus

While reading Elizabeth Stewart's review of Bursting the Grape, I was reminded of the idea of the creation of a strong company. Dominic Knutton "encouraged the actors to work daily on giving and receiving impulses" which implies that he wanted the company to appear as a singular unit. Almost as though there would be no lead performers, and everyone had an equal part in telling this story. This is proven in the review. Stewarts says that "vocally, too, the chorus was strong. They varied between speaking simultaneously and bouncing sentences rapidly off each other." Because of the ability to work as a cohesive unit, this production was successful.


This reminded me of the professional theatre companies that operate in a manner where they don't create new ensembles for each production. Certain companies base their work off of a group of performers who use a similar method (eg. the Suzuki method) and create work/choose productions based on the performers they have. As an example, the Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago or the SITI Company (Saratoga International Theater Institute). I was also reminded of this type of theatre company because Knutton "ployed the techniques of Jacques LeCoq, identifying a 'major', or leader, for movement and impulses who remains invisible to the audience and who can change throughout the performance."


The concept of the creation as a unified company really stuck out to me and it made me wonder if it was similar when it came to Greek Theatre. I know that there are different tribes that are represented at some of the festivals, but I wondered - did one group of performers do all 3 tragedies and then the satyr? Or did they have multiple groups of choruses (one for each play)? Also, did the already established choruses always start from scratch or did they try to get as many plays out of the same group of chorus members? Also, was there a standard way for the chorus to rehearse so they could operate as a mass? And so, I went to research.


Unfortunately, I was unable to find the answer to my question. Which leads me to believe that the Greeks did not operate in a manner similar to an ensemble-based theatre company. One of the main points that lead me to believe this is that 24 out of the existing 43 greek tragedies and comedies demand a female chorus. The reasoning behind this was because the chorus, in the orchestra area, would witness terrible acts of violence and would not do anything about it. When the chorus is men, the audience would be taken away from the story by noting how no one is doing anything to stop the violence. However, when the chorus was comprised of females, no one expected them to stop the violence as no one expected them to do anything. Though sexist, this made me think about my original question. It would be impossible for one chorus do to multiple shows without changing genders, and though this is possible with costuming, a 40-year-old chorus member would not be able to be portrayed as a woman. Only young (17-22 year olds) could potentially do it. 


Also, unfortunately, no one seemed to note how the chorus rehearsed and how they were staged. I assume that the staging for a chorus was very much along the lines that they moved as a mass. It is unfortunate to note that people only seem to be interested in how the chorus changed in numbers over time and not about how they rehearsed. I did however find an article on Didaskalia that discussed a university class in Illinois and their attempt to discover how the Greek's actually put on these plays and without having to modernize it. Which I found really interesting and I agree with the concept behind this experimental class - theatre majors as a whole study Greek theatre as an academic and the fact that they actually performed/rehearsed is semi-overlooked. Students don't really associate what we learn in out Greek theatre courses with the practical modern systems of acting and production that we learn.  I also like that in this article it says that they choreographed the chorus mostly based off of the vases/artwork that depict the Greek chorus and what the movement appears to be. It is a real shame that no one bothered to record how they chorus learnt their staging. 


For more fun articles - The use of a female chorus is discussed here. An interesting article about Suzuki performing Greek theatre can be found here.