When teaching plays, I can generally find a handful of students who are very willing to read parts, though I usually have to wait rather patiently to find enough students to read all the parts (and patience is not a strong suit of mine). But, of course, I want all students to participate.
I’ve found that Greek tragedies provide a good opportunity for participation. They feature a number of characters – and always have a chorus. Everyone can be in the chorus. There are some ways to approach Greek tragedies that could lead to some discussion of how the plays were themselves performed.
First, it might be useful to talk about the fact that, in ancient times, the individual characters of the play were originally performed by three actors who wore different masks. This means that actors would have played more than one role, since most of the plays have more than three characters – Antigone has seven characters and Oedipus Rex has eight, plus various guards and children. In an effort to think about how the actors might indicate the different roles, it might be useful, then, to have the students bring in props – or better yet, make masks – that signal each character.
But let’s get back to the chorus, the part that can get everyone involved. The chorus of the ancient tragedies tended to be quite large, possibly topping out around 50 members. So anyone not involved in reading the main characters can be in the chorus. The chorus also speaks in unison, so students who are reluctant to read aloud alone will be able to participate anyway.
But here’s the best part in terms of participation:
The chorus’ part involves movement. The ancients divided the choral sections into the strophe (turn), antistrophe (counter-turn), and the epode (after-song). During the strophe, the chorus moves in unison to the left; during the antistrophe, they move to the right; and while speaking/singing the epode, they stand still. (Note: not every play includes the epode. Sophocles frequently left that part out.)
The last time I taught Antigone in class, I took my students outside to perform chunks of the play. I had volunteers for each of the major parts and everyone else formed the chorus. My building has steps that lead up to it – and a nice, wide open space near the steps. We set out a space that would be a stage for the actors, and the chorus stood behind – and I directed the chorus going back and forth.
It’s a nice reminder that theater is a participatory event – and that the performance of the play brings us to understand things that we might not understand by simply reading.
As a bonus I was able to acquiesce to that eternal student demand on nice days: we got to have class outside.