Abstract:
Originally, theatre was nothing less than a carnival with people singing in the open air. The singing developed as chorus and remained exclusive in its nature of expressing opinions freely. It entered the domain of modern drama and the period that followed as a key player in the action on stage. For the ones marginalized in the course of history, chorus developed as a device to voice their words empathetically. Africans have been objectified and subjugated to the atrocities of racism, globally. The paper brings to light two plays written by African American playwrights having serious choral implications at their base- Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus (1996) and Lynn Nottage’s Mud, River, Stone (1997). Exhibiting the politics of gaze that runs under the nerve of oppressors, chorus in these plays lets the spectators break out of their passive roles and contribute towards breaking the shackles of prejudices and stereotypes.
Key Words: Chorus, Greek Theatre, Marginal, Gaze, Race, Post-modern drama.
The importance of chorus on the stage is well known since the Greeks developed theatre as a medium of celebrating humanity. It was primarily cultivated as an enactment of required public service, evolving gradually as an accessory to theatre. Its presence denoted the significance of performance led by a larger group of society. Though it changed forms, serving various functions across the globe through the course of development of theatre and dramatics, the musicality of chorus always remained an important segment of performance. Chorus that initially was practiced for the welfare of the towns or cities advanced as a tool to verbalize the opinions, thoughts and perceptions of the social milieu. In its functionality, propagation of knowledge and awareness rested at the core of choric performances. Its importance in theatrical staging can be traced back to the dictums of Aristotle’s Poetics, where he opines to consider the chorus as one of the actors. They always played a crucial role in showcasing the social reality that surrounded the prominent characters in a play. During the period which demarcates modern drama, from Ibsen to T.S. Eliot to Bertolt Brecht, theatre witnessed a meticulous and persistent trend of experimenting with the conventions of dramatic presentations. The need for verse suggested by Eliot to attain universal permanence also obtained reflection in his latter dramatic expeditions. Amidst these experiments on modern stage to dramatize consciousness well, chorus happened to be “one of the most difficult dramatic conventions to establish in modern drama” (Raymond Willams 179). The expository nature of Eliot’s chorus transcended to transformative nature of Brechtian chorality in the course. Though the journey of chorus as a dramatic convention has not remained an even one, the energy and power that dramatic imagination vests in it have always been remarkable.
Eli Rozik in “The Chorus: Matrix of Theatrical Conventions”, traces the practice of choral performances to the act of storytelling and oration. Oral culture has been a characteristic trait of native African culture and tradition. For African Americans as well their music and oration remained the highlights that paved their way to the world beyond. It was in turn a reflection of the oral culture, their distant and recent past. The rhythms and harmonies created by them were their screams and agitations in arrangement. Eleanor W. Taylor in her study of African American theatre notices the earlier trends in the theatre of African Americans, she writes:
sacred and secular Afro- American forms contained the choric improvisational call-and-response motifs. A single voice might utter a resonant call, thereby establishing a contextual theme, answered by a quartet of voices, harmonizing the thematic line, followed then by a full chorus expressing the desire of the many as one, and adding another dimension. (51)
Their language was considered as possessing music of their souls, an expression of the grief and agonies the white social order inflicted upon them. As early as Frederick Douglass, who considered plantation songs as signifying slave unity, beyond the norms of linguistic articulations, making meaningful assertions of their sufferings? The early theatre trends witnessed reflections of plantation “wild songs” or lamentations of deck performers. Music and performance remained crucial to the stage, right away from the African Grove theatre of William Brown. During the Harlem renaissance, political hues dominated the texture of theatrical enactments, thereby overshadowing the aesthetics that also was a prominent trait their African roots begot. Stressing more upon the “inner life” of the African Americans, Alain Locke dreamt of a theatre that mirrored art and aesthetic competence of the African American dramaturges. His call for a “completely new mold for African American theatre” (Hays 146) received response in the plays of August Wilson. Wilson was an adept at arranging words, aligning them with musical notes, and using it as a Greek chorus. Samuel Hays notes that chorus was included in plays by Wilson to “give the drama structure, comment on the action, and to reveal the theme (62). A widespread application of choral performances has been made by women playwrights of African American descent. These playwrights have utilized chorus as an instrument to reflect upon the numerous issues that centuries of color domination inflicted upon the psyche and lives of the natives. Alice Childress, Ntozake Shange, Suzan- Lori Parks, Anne Deavre Smith, Lynn Nottage are some of the popular ones who resorted to the ritual of chorus to sanctify their dramaturgies. Choral performances and its knack to function as a medium of “experiential articulation, community building and identity formation” (Jones 23) altogether lured the theatrical foresights of these playwrights. Kimberly Benston describes African American women writers’ use of chorus and music in theatre as-
rage against Euro-American institutions toward the shaping of uniquely Afro-American mythologies and symbol¬isms, flexibility of dramatic form, and participatory theatre within the Black community. Spiritually and technically, this movement is one from mimesis, or representation of an action, to methexis, or communal “helping-out” of the action by all assembled. It is a process that could be described alternatively as a shift from drama — the spectacle observed—to ritual—the event which dissolves tradi¬tional divisions between actor and spectator, between self and other. (62-63)
Chorus has been vividly brought in use by the theatre artists of African American origin. The paper focuses upon the unique choral layout that distinguishes the plays of Suzan-Lori Parks and Lynn Nottage as marvels in the history of drama. Parks’s Venus (1996) and Nottage’s Mud, River, Stone (1997) are the two plays examined to study the modern trends incorporated to the choral tradition, especially in the theatre of the African Americans. Both of these playwrights introduce innovative techniques to design their chorus and serve it towards shifting the focus to the unnoticed, the absent, the misrepresented. Their language skills deny any reductive image formation and attempt to revoke the negative opinions imposed on a colored soul in a white nation.
While in the play of Suzan-Lori Parks we come across through chorus, the reality of institutionalized dehumanizing process that aims to diminish the very existence of black women, Nottage’s play employs chorus in a progressive manner, ‘bringing diverse perspectives together’. Other African American women playwrights, like Ntozake Shange and Anne Deavere Smith, also harbored to the use of chorus in order to reveal the social and cultural biases that benumb the sole existence of the women of their kind.
Chorus in Venus (1996) by Suzan-Lori Parks functions as a foreteller of events that are to take place and lets her audience be a part of the performance. Harvey Young in his work- Choral Compassion: In the Blood and Venus, writes-
Parks through her embrace and (post)modernization of the Greek Chorus, stitches her contemporary audience into her narratives through an identification with her onstage characters, makes a veiled critique of present-day, societal complicity in the objectification of others, and, in so doing, encourages her audiences to feel compassion for the black, female protagonist within each play. (30)
Drawing attention upon the manner of significance and meaning creation, Parks uses theatre as a medium to create and recreate events of history that misses out on the African Americans. Chorus serves the function of the ‘citizenry’ that further enacts as ‘talking point of views’ on a wider scale. In Parks’s Venus (1996)we come across a very strategic implication of choral voices on stage. The voices here not only are bearers of the premonition but also become one with the audience as ‘spectators’ of the unfortunate situation Venus was subjected to. Chorus here goes beyond its conventionally classified boundaries and serves a wider purpose of representing the social reality that goes into the identity formation of an African American woman.
Helen Bacon in her study on Greek theatre writes: “The presence of a chorus is a sign of the wider significance of the enacted event, of the involvement of other human beings in the meaning, sometimes also in the consequences of its outcome” (8).
The act of emancipation did not entirely expunge the coloured souls from bondages of slavery. It couldn’t provide them an equal opportunity to share cultural, social or economic spheres and related problems with those of European descent. Racism was always a controversial issue in America and with the gradual increase in awareness its representation became an important concern. Theatre through its silver edges reflected what serious issues the society faced. In America as well it gained fame amongst blacks for its strong enunciation of the themes it discussed. Similar to the Greek theatrical tradition, chorus had a decisive role to play. When representing the problems that a community faces, chorus has been working out as one integral voice serving towards strengthening the struggle.
In the play Venus (1996) by Suzan-Lori Parks chorus summons the major issues pertaining to the existence of the character ‘Venus’ herself. It continually reminds the audience about the abnormal anatomy that Venus possesses and the twisted life she has been made to lead. The Foucauldian notion of ‘medical gaze’ of conceptually diagnosing a person anatomically and thus framing prejudices on latter grounds is extensively in practice in America and other white dominated nations. The protagonist in Parks’s play is a victim of such oppressive ideological apparatus. The ‘spectators’ are also the perpetrators who fix a black female to prejudices associated with her appearance and biological legacy. Parks’ play tells us the story of Saartje Baartman, or, ‘The Hottentot Venus’ and her experiences after coming to the West, Europe in particular. She was exploited physically, abused sexually, tortured mentally and thereby exhibited alive and dead around 1810. The colonizing gaze of West objectified her existence to a mere symbol of sexuality and biological wonder. The chorus keeps the audience aware that ‘the play is about looking-at her” (Young 41). The play emphasizes upon the obviousness of ‘gaze’ that her body invites.
A Chorus Member
They came miles and miles and miles and miles
Comin in from all over to get themselves uh look-see. (Venus, 13)
The various layers of voyeurism have been highlighted by the chorus where the power of spectacle is brought under scrutiny. The chorus reverberates indirectly to the audience, the politics behind normalizing the act of looking. The psychological conditioning of Baartman as a site for sore eyes unpersons her. The audience is made to witness the detrimental state of Venus and is left to trace out the process that afflicts captivity to her body, figure and soul.
Altogether, there are five sets of choruses in the play: chorus of eight human wonders, chorus of spectators, the chorus of the court, the chorus of eight anatomists and the players of ‘For the love of Venus’. These five choral sections stand for the words and meanings that have historically framed and re-framed the lives of black people, especially women. It invites contemporary opinions and views regarding the verity of the black existence, the aptness of the treatment history has levied upon them. Rena Fraden notices this attribute of Parks’s dramaturgy. She writes: “And certainly one of the most charming things about Parks on a page and in person is the way she goes back there, to old words and their meanings, and investigates them, their sounds haunting her utterly contemporary voice” (Suzan- Lori Parks 21).
Parks is known for ‘digging’ out the roots and re-creating histories. Here, in these play as well through the medium of chorus, Parks brings to the audience the historical reality of black existence. The choruses are bodies who make the audience interrogate the very nature of historical assumptions that led Baartman to forsake yearning for her desires. Hence, the essentials of Parks’s theatre seek to find meaning of one’s existence through the deft use of chorus.
An impression of ‘captive body’ is created for Baartman who is historically chained by the maligned white gaze. Merely a glimpse of her makes it evident that she must be objectified under chains for display.
The Chorus of the 8 Human Wonders
Chain Chain Chain. (Venus, 35)
Here, we can see that the chorus by achieving this representation presents before the contemporary viewers the intransigent conditioning of ‘black’ psyche. Certain traits of Eliot’s chorus in Murder in the Cathedral (1935) are perceptible here. Eliot also employed chorus as a device to set the mood and atmosphere of the play as well as a participant that took part in the action and provided a commentary over them to the audience. The interactive attitude of chorus is adapted by Parks as well.
Helen Bacon in her study looks upon chorus as “natural and necessary form of human interaction which they had witnessed and participated in since childhood, a social reality, rather than the artificial artistic convention they seem to us.” The social purpose, thus, served by chorus in ancient Greek theatres is similarly adopted by Parks in her play. They are representatives of societal forces who perceive Baartman in all negative ways, both morally and physically. Their opinions symbolize the progression lying behind the process of classification of Baartman’s identity. This transformative nature of chorus has been deliberately brought in use by Parks to highlight their critical role in deciding the character of Baartman. The audience is made to derive the perjury committed by the privileged class of which chorus is a part and understand thereby the trajectory of transformation- from Saartje Baartman to Venus. Fulfilling the playwright’s aim of providing the audience with a number of interpretations, the chorus members indirectly put the ‘other’, the marginalized at the center of the play. Unlike the Greek chorus which revolves round a person of high recognition, Parks’ (post)modernized chorus offers us a realistic picture of Baartman’s victimization in a society that has no empathy for a black person’s body. Also, Parks makes it clear that the black political issues are less of her concern than the consciousness that is exploited in the inter-cultural exchange. Kerstin Schmidt in her book Theatre of Transformation writes:
Parks pursues a politics different from the thrust of traditional African-American literature. Her theatre does not predominantly tell the story of racial oppression. Quite often, it does not even tell a story at all―even though topics such as an African-American identity and sense of self as located 'in-between' cultures and the concomitant problematization of a sense of belonging and community feature prominently in her work. (178)
The stereotypes deciding on the attributes of a black character are problematized in Parks’ play. The audience is given complete authority to defer in interpretations as the playwright doesn’t wish to impose the opinion of the protagonist. The five choral sections are established as five different ways of looking at Baartman. Chorus of Eight Human Wonders introduces her as a freak show; Chorus of Spectators establishes the act of looking at Baartman as Venus ‘The Hottentot’ obvious and typical, the Chorus of the Court falls next in line that labels her and the entire race as foul:
“The Chorus Leader… Her kind bears Gods bad mark and, baptised or not, they blacken-up the honour of our fair country. Get her out of here!”(Venus, 75)
The protagonist is made to submit her originality to the white hegemony. The codes of visualising that signify ‘white’ as Godly and ‘black’ as evil are made self-evident by the chorus. It also projects for audience’s response, stirring their philosophy of the binaries. The chorus thus, serves the purpose of mediating between time zones, questioning the justifiability of the exploitations hurled by history upon Baartman. The rest two chorus groups are that of ‘the Eight Anatomists’ and ‘for the love of Venus’. The anatomists consider Baartman as a subject of their study. Their function is limited to pronouncing the measurements of Baartman’s body. Her biological composition invites her misfortune.
The other section ‘For the Love of Venus’ has players that deprive Baartman of the humanly treatment she craves. She finds no escape from this world and dreams of changing her fate by earning more and more. This submission proves an easy way for her victimization. Therefore, through a variation of choral applications in her play, Parks is seen as presenting past with a modernised outlook. Similar to chorus which historically held an important place in the domain of theatre, there is the undeniable historic voyeurism and physical assault inflicted upon the Africans in America, Europe and other ‘white’ nations. Parks appears to resurrect this venerable theatrical convention and alongside invigorate the infinite struggle of the Africans against the prejudiced white supremacy.
Lynn Nottage, another Pulitzer winner African American playwright, uses chorus in a different way where the counter opinions of her characters in the play Mud, River, Stone (1997) are no less than a chorus. Jennifer L. Hayes while examining the characters of this play terms them as ‘global chorus’ that showcases various sides of the persisting global conflict. Looking at the African political context of ruptured identities, Nottage indisputably portrays the long-lasting effects of colonialism. The play is set in postcolonial era where the trauma of colonial exploits lingers in the background. The postcolonial gaze operates as pioneering subject/object relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Characters in the play represent varying points of view regarding contemporary world issues. These opinions taken together introduce a chorus-like behaviour to the ambience, polyphony. Nottage innovatively uses this Greek theatrical device to articulate the crucial aspects of an African’s life, living in America or in their respective native lands. Kevin J. Wetmore Jr. argues that African American playwrights adapt and incorporate the elements of Greek drama into their plays because the form “is distant enough to say things that audiences would not be as comfortable hearing and seeing directly” (3-4). This approach allows for the exploration of present problems through familiar theatrical traditions such as the chorus. Nottage attempts to connect the dots of history to the contemporary global scenario where the ‘polyvocal’ chorus constituted of multicultural roots serve as a medium. New York Times critic Peter Marks suggests that these diverse characters function as various political “arguments” and “talking points of view” concerning vital global topics. Heard together these individual voices authenticate “competing narratives concerning the aftermath of colonization”.
The play begins with Sarah narrating her escape from an African landscape where she along with her husband David, the two African American characters of the play appear searching for their roots. Their severed past and lack of touch with the natives make them misunderstand the navigation and they land to The Imperial Hotel, where the action of the play is performed. The hostage situation in which they find themselves next tills the field for the contemporary chorus standing for a memorable event being performed. Unlike Parks where the chorus is more of Greek style, Nottage’s chorus brings to the context the competing, diverse agendas while letting the members retain their own identities. The diverse notions, equivocated, let the audience observe the historically established facts sceptically. Nottage uses this transformative power of theatre to expose various ways of undermining the weak people who have no means to make their voices heard. Reverting the situation, she places the socially marginalized group under the tags of race and gender in conversation with the business men and others belonging to the mainstream. Focussing upon the important roles played by the chorus Graham Ley elaborates “..songs or dances accompanied decisive events in the lives of Greek communities” (30). The choruses traditionally enacted the events to be remembered, helping these retain their historicity and making the stories live forever. The playwright opts for this medium to inform the audience about the politicised historiography the marginals have been globally subjected to. Challenging the homogeneity of traditional chorus, Nottage brings to the limelight diversity of opinions for the audience to rethink the challenges faced by the African community worldwide. Thus, incorporating choral perceptions in her play; Lynn Nottage imparts progressive attitude and function to her theatre. Each of the characters has individual perceptions about the hostage situation. For the Bradley couple Africa bears a sentimental touch; but loss of connection to their ancestral roots keeps them oblivious of anticipating the problems faced by the natives. Counter narratives of the origin of the hotel is presented by Joaquin and Mr. Blake. The disparity in historical points of view is hence made obvious to the audience. For Blake, the hotel symbolizes his familial pride:
My uncle built it in the thirties. He had a vision of a railway from the coast cutting across the continent. He built this hotel not even by a river, hoping that he could bribe the officials to have the railway pass through here. . . . This hotel is the final vestige of an age. . . . It really was a splendid dream. Can you imagine the insanity that brokered this magnificence? The chandelier was brought up from South Africa. The wood, the finest mahogany imported from West Africa. The glass, from Cairo. This hotel represents the totality of the Continent. He thought he could bring it all together under one roof. Here now, the embodiment of an idea gone sour. (184–185)
The imperialistic mission of civilizing the barbaric is echoed here in Blake’s ideology regarding the construction of the hotel. On the other hand, Joaquim has his own version of history. The hotel holds a significant place in his heart because the members of his community laboured hard to build it. He refuses the impositions of the colonial power in these words:
He says his uncle built this hotel, but it is not the truth. Our village did. Look closely at the details throughout the rooms. You will see our history carved into the woodwork. Our stories are all here (186) .
The simultaneous versions of history defy the existence of the other and hence the audience is made to understand the conflicting nature of historical narratives. The play draws audience’s attention also by its focus on analysing “the explosive mixtures of tribal war, colonialism, and diverse cultural identities” (Shannon 190).
Various claims to African-ness are put forward by people belonging to different nationalities. Neibert, a Belgian wanderer, has spent some time in the continent and thinks himself as embodying the very essence of Africa. He strives for recognition and belonging:
David: Don’t take offense, but you are a white man. (Sings) “You’re not black, you’re not an African.” WHITE! When you say “my brother” you’re assuming a bond that does not exist.
Neibert: Really? And you are an African by virtue of your colour?
David: And ancestry. Yes. (214)
The entire conversation in the context of hostage event is constituted of efforts of every character in proving their allegiances to Africa. The utter destitute living conditions of the natives are beyond the imagination, comprehension and empathy of the African Americans or any other nationalities. Out of frustration and need for basic amenities, Joaquin takes other visitors as hostages. He says: “I want food for my village, grains and a wool blanket for my mother.” (206). It brings to question the claim of brotherhood that other visitors brag to share. Several cultural appropriations of the African reality clash in together, thus scattering a number of voices and points of views regarding crucial issues like war, poverty, community:
David: Hey, what was the war about? (Mr. Blake laughs heartily.)
Mr. Blake: Power. Control. Money.
Joaquim: Land. Food. Culture. (201)
The racial and postcolonial tensions reach their extreme when the roles of the coloniser and the colonised get reversed. Joaquim grabs the gun of Mr. Blake and attempts to control the language and behaviour of the guests. The discussions regarding race, ethnicity and nation gradually become more intense, soon after the incident that heralds the visitors as captives. This sets the stage for the chorus to discuss these acute complications typical of a newly independent nation. Talking of the condition of the natives, Joaquim breaks down and says:
Joaquim (Thinks): .. No matter what happens nothing changes for us here. A new leader comes, promises a better life, we fight along his side, we go home hungry, we die. No more. It is my turn to take. No more soldiering for someone else. (206)
The hustle between Joaquim and the rest of the choral members end when his gun is snatched away by the latter. The violence that follows seems to represent the after-effects of imperialism, i.e., strangling the voice of the native.
Thus, we get to know and understand two different adaptations of chorus and its usage and implications pertaining to two extreme situations wherein members of the marginalized community have to withstand all adversities being subject to the logos deciding upon their lives. The two playwrights seem to be fulfilling what Alain Locke, acknowledged as an architect of Harlem renaissance, dreamt of - a time when black drama would be “more universal even in sounding it’s most racial notes” (Plays of Negro Life, vi).
While Parks’s chorus bears signature of the Greek style, Nottage’s is a present day creation which breaks out of the trend of a homogenous chorus. Nottage uses it to politicize the historically established facts while Parks presents before the audience the bare reality of a black life, diseased by the white gaze and ‘spectacle’. Both of the playwrights make their plays creative and interactive by this means, making the audience shuffle their original notions and views. Proving their mettle as illustrious figures on the American stage, as well, these two playwrights skilfully dissolve the barrier between the actor and spectator, delimiting the horizons set by traditional theatrical forms. The deliberate involvement of this device enables the audience to reflect back on their role of spectatorship which has been maligning the innocence of a black soul like Baartman and depersonalized characters like Joaquim. The observation made by Helen Bacon in her study on Greek chorus stands accurate for both the above contexts that value chorus for “Its power to educate, strengthen and unite” as well as its ability to represent “.. the social reality” of a concerned group “.. that comes together to respond to an event of critical importance” (17-19).
Works Cited