Crowd or chorus? Howard Barker's mise-en-scène and the tradition of the chorus in the European theatre of the twentieth century

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article analyses Howard Barker's most recent play BLOK/EKO from a European perspective. It identifies his use of language and of bodies as common elements in his exploration of plethora, and links them to European experimentation with new choric forms, for example on German-speaking stages. These forms offer a wide range of choric elements that do not always presuppose the presence of a fully formed chorus. Instead, they investigate a more fluid interaction between the individual and the mass. The article will use Detlev Baur's classification of the chorus in his seminal book Der Chor im Theater des 20. Jahrhunderts (1999) to compare and contrast Barker's staging of BLOK/EKO with Einar Schleef's staging of Elfriede Jelinek's Ein Sportstück (1998). Both directors use musicalization of language and a formal spatial arrangement of bodies onstage to create a stylized, heightened performance that consciously moves away from realism. In this comparison, I will point out how Barker's use of the chorus is still more closely linked to a realistic notion of the mass onstage, whereas Schleef employs his chorus more freely. Barker's concept of the ‘exordium’ will help to illustrate what both performances have in common in their use of choric elements.