Modern Interpretations of Greek Chorus - National Theatre

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlXi8LfKv-0

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the chorus often doesn't seem to be the
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most relatable thing for audiences I
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think theater makers and theater goers
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are really really aware of that it's
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kind of often talked about as a problem
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and I think the course is really
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challenging to contemporary audiences
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but not challenging in a it's really
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difficult we can't we can't handle it
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way challenging in a way that kind of
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prompts us to get involved in the action
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get invested start bringing what we
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really have in our lives to tragedy

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all of the things that they do all the time
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is they talk about different places in
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different times so the chorus in a way
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acts as a kind of window into other
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worlds and if you think about the
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ancient theatre when you didn't have a
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laboratory you can do set changes you
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just had a stage people an audience
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really really important to be able to
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say and now I'm going to go back in time
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a little bit so if we think about women
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of Troy there we have a chorus quite
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early on in the play when they talk
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about what was happening just before the
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Trojan horse got wheeled in and the
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whole city was sacked they're
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remembering the wonderful times they had
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for how they thought the war's over

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celebrating and dancing
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the ancient Greeks combined spoken text
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with some text and danced so I wanted in
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conceiving our chorus to honor that and
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to have as many of those ingredients as
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possible so of course they have the
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spoken text which they deliver directly
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to the audience in the little turn but
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also they do dancing in this production
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we're using dance without the men so by
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putting their arms up and the women
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dancing it reminds the audience of the
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absent men who've been killed in the
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conflict the challenges is finding a new
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language for the chorus and because of
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course at the time what happened is the
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chorus would have about you know this
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was a this was an oral culture so you
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groups of women would all know these
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songs obviously their chorus and the
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original productions would have sung but
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we're working with will and Allison from
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Goldfrapp her creating a new choral
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score for the production and so they're
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going to be working with our female
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chorus of 13 performers to get this very
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kind of strong ethereal sound through the production

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in Antigone we had a
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chorus that was really really definitely
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made into a group of individuals where
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people have their own individual roles
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they have their own individual
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identities they spoke as individuals
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they also found that actually within us
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of choral ode a particular piece of
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coral text you had almost a conversation
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going on you had differing opinions
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coming out and so in a way the unity of
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the chorus was was exploded in that
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production and it had a really really
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powerful effect so we knew that we were
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going to make the chorus a gang of men
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individual personalities that a modern
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audience could more readily understand
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easier to understand ten individuals and
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ten people operating as a pack all the
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time who were running one of the secret
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underground they called continuance of
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government facilities as the posh phrase
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for them so it was quite fun of working
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out what the status of those ten men
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might be how they might interact with
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each other and then to use that as a way
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of starting to carve up the lines who
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has a low status line here I stated I'm

one of the things I think

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allows audiences to interact with a
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course is that often their identity will
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be based on a kind of stereotype
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so in Women of Troy we have sort of
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slightly upper-class women who up until
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now I've had like a very very nice life
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suddenly they're in this awful awful
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situation where they've lost everything
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and they're just not entirely sure how
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to deal with it and all of the chorus
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members in that in that production of
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Katy Mitchell's were very very nervy and
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kind of unsure about how to handle
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things they have their handbags and so
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that was sort of their mainstay so
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that's a stereotype immediately we kind
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of understand in the midea we have a
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different kind of stereotype of the
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bridesmaid and it's the sort of role
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they slowly slowly take on it's really
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interesting kind of plot arc that the
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course in Medea have in Carrie
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Crandall's production where they come on
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sort of individually costumed and all
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very interested they are a unit but they
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have they have some distinction and then
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slowly they get kind of absorbed into
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this bridesmaids from how sort of
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costuming and at the end they're all
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very civil one unit

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