Greek Chorus - Basic Techniques

In the lesson we looked into Greek chorus in order to explore the different ways to use our voices as an ensemble. in Greek theatre the chorus would usually provide commentary on the actions and events that were taking place on stage. They are very judgemental and can provoke the lead actors to do things because of their beliefs. they often would wear masks and there could be a leader of the chorus in which the rest of them follow.



We firstly thought about how the chorus could say large chunks of speech. one way they  could talk is by all of the chorus saying every word at the same time and tone. We found that this became quite lazy, depressing and church like which could be useful for a gloomy effect but it didn't really engage us as the audience. We then said that each person could say one line each. This flowed better as everyone got a bit to say and we were all individuals in the chorus however it did drag and there wasn't much emotion in the piece. We then made every person read up to the punctuation marks and then the next person would start. I felt that this was the most effective as it wasn't so regimented and everyone was able to have their own individual voice in the chorus. another way to perform this piece could be by splitting into small groups and read the piece, having the leader read the speech but the chorus read the last two words on the line or have the leader read the speech and the other chorus members repeating words that stood out for them.

Chorus reaction:
We also looked into to reactions that the Greek chorus might have to what the lead actors might say or do. For example they could react to the death of a lead character. One way in which we explored reaction was by showing opposite emotions. We were asked to show our reaction to good news and then bad news. I noticed that when we heard good news people's faces brightened up and they were more likely to lean forward to hear the news. However when people hear bad news they shrunk into themselves more. We also looked at fear and empowerment. Most people used the chair as a protector when they were portraying fear but when they showed empowerment, people stood up on the chair and opened up more. We finally looked at forgiveness and punishment. When people portrayed forgiveness they were reaching towards someone on the same level as them but when they showed punishment most people looked down to the person. I think that using opposite emotions it allows the actors to find the extreme differences in the body images and gives them a basis to show emotion as a chorus.