Playing the Chorus in Greek Tragedy

Modern audiences see the chorus as an emblematic yet static element of ancient Greek drama, whose reflective songs puncture the action. This is the first book to look beyond these odes to the group’s complex and varied roles as actors and physical performers. It argues that the chorus’ flexibility and interactive nature has been occluded by the desire from Aristotle onwards to assign the group a single formal role. It presents four choreographies that ancient playwrights employed across tragedy, satyr play, and comedy: fragmentation, augmentation, interruption, and interactivity. By illustrating how the chorus was split, augmented, interrupted, and placed in dialogue, this book shows how dramatists experimented with the chorus’ configuration and continual presence. The multiple self-reflexive ways in which ancient dramatists staged the group confirms that the chorus was not only a nimble dramatic instrument, but also a laboratory for experimenting with a range of dramatic possibilities.

Author Biography

Rosa Andújar is Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts at King’s College London. She has published widely on Greek tragedy and its rich reception. Her publications include The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro (2020), which won the 2020 London Hellenic Prize, Greeks and Romans on the Latin American Stage (2020), and Paths of Song: The Lyric Dimension of Greek Tragedy (2018).