Some thoughts to get you going on Chorus Creation.
The chorus is made up of individuals who become a chorus by coming together in response to great, often threatening, stimuli. We band together to try to deal with forces we feel are too great to be met individually. In Athenian tragedy, the threat often comes of the breaking of the lawa moment that strikes like the terrible rumble of thunder on the horizon, about to break out into a destructive storm.
Always let the play guide you. Whats the situation behind Antigone? Civil war. Create this reality. Pick up a news magazine. Study the photos in the mid-east. Palestine and Israel. What does civil warmean in human terms? In terms your actor self can create with? The war has recently ended. Its a tentative d�tente at best. (Create.) Who are the men who make up this chorus? Motivated to do what? What relationship have they had to the civil war? Create in action terms.
Then: What specific event has happened that sets this play in motion? What exactly brings the chorus to the palace? Improvise. Create. Always turn your very good ideas into illustrative, motivated behavior.
Then: The chorus always comes to this spot (most often the front of the royal palace. This was the basic arrangement of the Athenian stage: raised platform with doorway entrance(s) to the palace. In front of it: the circular chorus dancing space. On either side of the palace, exits (entrances) to the city and to the country.) The chorus comes to this spot to do something, to take very specific action. What brings the chorus of Antigone to the palace courtyard on this particular dawn? What are they here to do?
Then: Something happens.
For Monday: Improvise the individual chorus members in response to specific stimuli becoming a chorus that together arrive at the palace grounds. Improvise that opening choral ode and processional.
Get to: What specifically happens that touches off the choral ode that precedes Antigones entrance with the guard? What exactly are the chorus doing? What are they trying to do? The vocal part of which is this highly-structured, physically and vocally demanding ode?
Improvise and present the ode in class.
Medea and Agamemnon choruses: The same structure. Explore. Improvise as structured trial-and-error. Clarify your goals. What are you working toward exactly? Be specific. Work together. Let the play and its clues be your strongest guide.
Who will be prepared to present the opening Antigone and Ismene scene on Wednesday? Be prepared to volunteer on Monday. Start working now.
We are off. This is a glorious year and this is its magnificent first quarter.
What is drama for the actor?
What are the essential building blocks of Western drama?
How do the Athenian tragedies embody these elements?
What is tragedy? What traits do all tragic characters share? Where do you find these in todays world?
What is irony? Tragic irony? Expressed how? Where do you find it? What do you look for?
Resistance to forces. Opposition of forces. Clarity. Distance. Magnitude.
Be brave. Explore. Discover. Learn. Let nothing stand in your way.