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The Circle and the Tragic Chorus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

J. F. Davidson
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Extract

It is a well-known and often lamented fact that we know very little about the actual staging of plays in the theatre of Dionysus in the Fifth Century b.c. What snippets of information we do have date from later centuries and may reflect contemporary conditions of performance, or may be mere inference based on fifth-century texts. Even though we can derive considerable comfort from Oliver Taplin's dictum that ‘the Greek tragedians signalled all their significant stage directions in the words’, 2 much that would enhance our knowledge of a fifth-century production remains a mystery.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , April 1986 , pp. 38 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

Notes

1. It may even be that many or all of the few generally accepted ‘facts’ recorded by later writers about the fifth-century tragic theatre may stem ultimately from sources such as Aristophanes. See Lefkowitz, Mary R., Hermes 112 (1984), 143–53Google Scholar.

2. Taplin, O., PCPhS 23 (1977), 129Google Scholar. Cf. his Greek Tragedy in Action (London, 1978), p. 175Google Scholar. See also Arnott, P., Greek Scenic Conventions (Oxford, 1962), pp. 21–22Google Scholar.

3. For informative discussions of Greek dance, see Lawler, Lillian B., The Dance of the Ancient Greek Theatre (Iowa City, 19654), passimGoogle Scholar; Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (Oxford, 2nd ed. 1968 [from now on cited as P.C.F.2]), pp. 246ff.Google Scholar; Fitton, J. W., CQ 23 (1973), 254–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. See e.g. the sensible criticism by Webster, T. B. L., The Greek Chorus (London, 1970), p. xiGoogle Scholar of the approach taken by Prudhommeau, G., La Danse Grecque Antique (Paris, 1965)Google Scholar.

5. Taplin, , Greek Tragedy in Action, pp. 12–13Google Scholar states bluntly, ‘Between their songs the chorus will have stood (or knelt or sat) as still and inconspicuous as possible: their role was to dance and sing, not to be a naturalistic stage crowd.’ This (admittedly generalizing) formula does not sound quite right, however, for a chorus such as that of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, nor does it take into account the important role of the coryphaeus.

6. Advocates of this view include Lawler, , op. cit., p. 28Google Scholar, and Walton, J. M., Greek Theatre Practice (Westport and London, 1980), pp. 54–56Google Scholar. Baldry, H. C., The Greek Tragic Theatre (London, 1971), pp. 64–67Google Scholar, also inclines to this view, albeit somewhat cautiously.

7. P.C.F.2, p. 252, is sceptical about the ‘evidence’ of the scholia. Dale, A. M., The Lyric Metres of Greek Drama 2 (Cambridge, 1968), p. 213Google Scholar, rejects the idea out of hand.

8. See e.g. Mastronarde, D. J., Contact and Discontinuity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1979), pp. 32–34Google Scholar.

9. See Dale, , Collected Papers (ed. Webster, T. B. L. and Turner, E. G., Cambridge, 1969), pp. 34–40Google Scholar, for the disposal of the theory that ‘stasimon’ meant a choral song not accompanied by dancing.

10. Quotations from ancient authors are from the relevant OCT unless otherwise noted.

11. One application of this word in the context may be to the chorus' dancing position. Cf. Bond, ad loc.

12. Cf. e.g. Pindar's use of χορεύων I. 1.8.

13. Or sometimes even dancing which they anticipate will happen, e.g. Soph, . O. T. 1090ffGoogle Scholar.

14. CJ 53 (1957–1958), 1–7Google Scholar.

15. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford, 1977), p. 20 n. 1Google Scholar.

16. The Lyric Metres of Greek Drama, pp. 213–4. Cf. P.C.F.2, p. 252.

17. Cf. Pindar's evocation of the Muses’ choral performance for the sons of Aeacus at N. 5.22ff.

18. See P.C.F.2, pp. 239ff.

19. The dithyrambic chorus was in fact called κύκλιος χορός. For discussion, see Pickard-Cambridge, , Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy (Oxford, 2nd ed. 1962), pp. 1ff.Google Scholar, and Lawler, , op. cit., pp. 1ffGoogle Scholar.

20. An altar in the centre of the orchestra would make a natural focal point around which to dance, as is usually assumed anyway for dithyramb. See Lawler, , op. cit., p. 11Google Scholar.

21. See Webster, , op. cit., p. 112Google Scholar. Lawler, , op. cit., p. 26Google Scholar, also envisages considerable freedom for the choreographer within the course of any given tragedy.

22. Das Theater der Tragodie (Munich, 1974), pp. 69–70Google Scholar.

23. P.C.F.2, p. 239 n. 2.

24. Dioniso 3 (1931–1933), 336–45Google Scholar.

25. P.C.F.2, p. 239 n. 2, grudgingly accepts this as a possibility.

26. Eranos 78 (1980), 133–42 (in particular 135–6)Google Scholar.

27. P.C.F.2, p. 239 n. 2.

28. At Aesch. Choeph. 983 Orestes is addressing his attendants, though the chorus may also respond appropriately. Circular formation is also strongly implied in contexts such as Eur. H.F. 525–8 (τέκν' ὁρωπρὸ δωμάτω/ στολμοĩσι νεκρων κρãτας ἐξεστεμμένα/ ὄχλῳ τ' ἐν ἀνδρων τὴν ἐμὴν ξυνάορο/ πατέρα τε δακρύοντα) in which Heracles describes the suppliant position taken by Megara, Amphitryon, and the children vis-a-vis the chorus.

29. The chorus cannot, of course, act crowd-scenes realistically, which is one of the reasons for messenger speeches in the first place. See e.g. Bremer, J. M., ‘Why Messenger-Speeches?’, Miscellanea Tragica in Honorem J. C. Kamerbeek (Amsterdam, 1976), pp. 29–48 (in particular, p. 34)Google Scholar.

30. Much depends on whether the messenger was actually in the orchestra or on a ‘stage’, and if there was a ‘stage’, whether this was raised or still at orchestra level.

31. For that matter, it may even designate ‘all over’, as perhaps at Aristoph. Wasps 432 (οἱ δὲ τὠφθαλμὼ κύκλῳ κεντεĩτε καὶ τοὺς δακτύλους). Cf. MacDowell, ad loc.

32. Cf. also Andr. 1088–9 where it is reported by the messenger how little groups of suspicious Delphians kept forming: εἰς δὲ συστάσεις/ κύκλους τ' ὲχώρει λαὸς οἰκήτωρ δεοũ.