Interpretation of the Chorus

Chorus' purpose

In a Greek theatre, the chorus was a group of actors who would narrate and observe the events happening in the play, which would be performed with a song, dance and reciting what occurred. In Greek tragedies, the play would begin with a choral song of a large group of around 50 men, performing dithambrys, which were lyric hymns to praise Dionysus. This brings back to how Greek tragedies and, later in 487BC comedies  were performed annually in the Festival of Dionysus, held to honour the God.

The chorus represent the outside opinion on the events and characters of the play, the 'audience'. The voice of the thoughts of the observers. This includes them warning of dangers and evil, expressing grief and pain and rejoicing in happiness. Their role is to react to major scenes in the supposed way an audience would react, giving them a better understanding of each scene.

The chorus would often wear masks and look alike in their costumes as well, speaking in unison. The masks would all be identical as they represented the same character. In our interpretation of the play, the masks we used varied in emotion e.g happy/sad/angry. Doing this meant we could represent the variety of emotions throughout 'Antigone'. Although the happy emotion is not that clear, it could illustrate Antigone's happiness of now being in heaven with her brothers Polyneices and Eteocles, and mother, Jocasta.

The nature of the chorus links to the idea of 'Deindividuation', as their similarity and synchronised movement/verses shows their loss of identity in the group. This makes them one voice of opinion that slowly gets more powerful through the play.

How the Chorus change through 'Antigone'

In the beginning, the chorus start out with no power appearing weak and submissive, with no influential opinion of the characters. They are simply under an oppressive ruler, Creon. Antigone, who at the time was the only rebellion against the king stood alone, as the chorus don't get involved but instead remind her how she "defied the law", and "The King must rule according to the law". However as Creon unravels and realises he is not as superior as God and his rulings have been dangerously consequential, the behaviour and status of the chorus changes.  They end up finally getting into his mind and drive him insane, for example our choice of the whispering of "Eurydice" is a constant reminder of the damage he's caused (Antigone hanging herself, in result Haemonn killing himself and Eurydice, his wife killin herself). The ending lines from the chorus show them at the peak of their power, finishing with a moral conclusion, e.g "Don't wait for pain to give you wisdom".