Emmanuel Aprilakis, Rutgers University
This paper spotlights the capacity of actors to lead choruses in the performance of Greek tragedy. It argues that actors periodically step outside of their primary role as individual characters up on the stage and interact especially closely with the choral group singing and dancing down in the orchestra. While each dramatic chorus formally had its own internal chorus-leader ('koryphaios'), I argue for a multiplicity of chorus-leaders on the tragic stage, as part of a broader phenomenon that I term “layered leadership.”
In reconsidering the rigid notion of tragic performance and choral conducting, this investigation builds on a variety of types of scholarship, looking backward to archaic lyric (Calame 2001; Nagy 1994/5) and the origins of drama (Depew 2007); from the outfitting of a dramatic troupe (Wilson 2000) to its positioning in the theater (Pickard-Cambridge 1968). Important interlocutors are specialist studies concerned with choral diction (Kaimio 1970) and dialogue sections often attributed to the koryphaios alone (Dettori 1992). Since choral self-referentiality and metapoetics are critical to this analysis, the observations of Henrichs (1994/5) are indispensable.
While the capacity of actors to lead choruses in song-dance, plain spatial movement, and emotional reaction can be traced across fifth-century tragedy, several outstanding examples can be found in the latter half of Euripides’ corpus. Thus, this paper focuses neatly on three plays to exhibit ways in which individual characters can usurp the natural role of the koryphaios and guide the choral group: Hecuba in 'Troades', Helen in 'Helen', and Dionysus in 'Bacchae'. Torrance’s treatment of metapoetry in Euripides is fundamental, and each of these plays has engendered useful scholarship to which to respond (Suter 2003; Marshall 2014; Segal 1982).
In 'Troades', the choral parodos immediately follows Hecuba’s speech wherein she distinguishes herself as the chorus-leader, asserting that she will ἐξάρχω (147; a conventional term for chorus-leading) the song, but cannot do so as she used to ἐξῆρχον with her ποδὸς ἀρχεχόρου. (151-2). 'Helen' showcases Helen as leader of the chorus throughout. She opens the play and kicks off the choral parodos, in which she sings the strophes, while the chorus of captive women respond with the antistrophes (164-252). Helen and the chorus sing a lyric dialogue while she physically leads them into the palace (330-385), and she later returns them to the stage (515). In the final stasimon of the play (1451-1511), after Helen departs with Menelaus, the chorus urge on their ship, which they call χοραγὲ τῶν καλλιχόρων δελφίνων, ‘chorus-leader of beautiful-dancing dolphins’ (1454). Finally, 'Bacchae' exhibits an explosion of references to Dionysus as leader, from his assertion that he will join the Bacchic choruses just before the parodos, in which the chorus call him ἔξαρχος Βρόμιος (141).
Ultimately, against former rigid formulations, I posit that we can view tragedy as wielding an ability similar to satyr-play with its treatment of Papposilenus, who seems to modulate between actor and chorus-leader (Sutton 1974). This is significant as it helps reconsider the form of tragic performance and its relationship to its origins and ritual context.