Theatre History Overview - Part 97 - The Chorus: From Greek Drama to the Modern Musical

When people today hear the word chorus, they tend to think of a group that sings on stage during a play or the refrain of a song. Both of these things are correct. However, the chorus that exists on stage wouldn't exist if it weren't for choruses in Greek plays. Around 508 B.C Athenian democracy was created. The inhabitants of Attica divied into ten tribes.

These ten tribes entered two different choruses made up of 50 people each (one of men and one of boys) into a yearly dithyrambic competition. By the 5th century A.D., the members of choruses were amateurs. There were even many types of choruses performed by women, but only men performed in choruses for tragedies, comedies, satyr plays, and dithyrambs. It is thought that the size of the chorus was originally 50 people, then that Aeschylus reduce the size to ten people, and then Sophocles raised it to 15 people.

In the only extant play by Aeschylus, the chorus had at least half the lines. Hippolytus by Euripides doesn't have as many words for the chorus, but it has two choruses. These facts seem to suggest that the chorus was a major part of spectacle for Greek theatre.

The chorus in Greek theatre had many functions:

1. Added energy by using dance,songs, and visual spectacle.
2. Set the overall mood of the play and the the scene in the play.
3. Gave rhyhtmic function to a play. The chanting, singing, or dialogue gave the audience time to reflect on what happeened in a play.
4. Sometimes the chorus served as a character. It might give advice, express opinions, ask questions, or even take part in the action.
5. It might estabilish social and/or ethical framework.
6. It might serve as an ideal spectator. The playwright could write lines and movements for the chorus in the way he wanted the audience to respond.

The grouping and placement of the chorus in the text of Greek plays suggests that the chorus was extremely active. However, at times the chorus varied. It may have come on all at once, split into groups, or even one person at a time. Providing the information and giving an overall tone is known as exposition. These are still jobs of the chorus today. The chorus never truly left the theatre. There have just been different ways it is presented.

Basically, the chorus is used in the same ways the Greeks used the chorus. The fact that the chorus provides exposition is spoofed in Urinetown: the Musical with the obvious title of the musical number, "Too Much Exposition." The Greek chorus is spoofed in Legally Blonde: the Musical during the song "Positive" when it is said that every tragedy needs a Greek chorus. Both of these songs give exposition for the musicals. Both videos can be seen below.



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