The Least Detectable Deceivers

The orchestra is pumping out sassy pop music while the attractive lead is belting vocals. The lights flash and whirl across the stage and auditorium, and the place is in full swing.

I know I’m supposed to be watching the star - eyes centre stage as she gives it her all. 

But someone to her right distracts me.

A dynamic talent, smiling, dancing, shining in a crowd of chorus has me entranced. I can’t look away.

Before I know it, the number is over and I’m left with the lead characters talking about something.

I find myself surveilling for the next big song so I can find her again.

We often go to see shows for the stars or the showstopper numbers we love so much, but what role does the chorus play? Are they undervalued? Is it their job to blend and merely support the leads? Or can they be more than that?

For the Ancient Greeks, who began theatre as we know it, the chorus was a mass of people playing one entity. Up to 50 thespians spoke or sang narration in unison, wearing masks and commenting on the action from a moral standpoint. They often expressed the fears and hopes of the characters, and gave background, summary and structure to the storyline so audiences could clearly follow along. They were completely in sync and, having to perform in vast open spaces, they were loud and, at times, frightening. 

But as theatre spread, performance spaces grew smaller and verbal language became more complex, the chorus diminished.

By the Elizabethan era, a single actor known as ‘chorus’ might recite the prologue or epilogue in plays. Whereas in Operas, they were still narrative tools as they were for the Greeks.

It was, in fact, the likes of Mozart in the 18th Century and Verdi’s Romantic Operas that uncovered the chorus of the musicals we see today. Their massive chorus scenes created participants in the action and founded the chorus as vital citizens in the establishment of context - they were armies, society elites and grovelling peasants. 

But I don’t think the chorus should be sabotaged as simply singing and dancing human scenery.

A good director will give their chorus an objective. A good chorus member will become the operative and make it their mission to succeed.

A dear friend of mine was assigned to the chorus in Nunsense: The Mega Musical. She had wanted a lead role, but it just wasn’t her time. The script gave no indication of the kind of nun she should be. But, like any great actor who didn’t get the lead role, she wasn’t just going to blend in. She would use this opportunity as a brilliant disguise.

Every time she came out on stage she looked terribly grumpy; grumpy singing, grumpy dancing. Her shoulders would hunch for a split second and she might ‘forget’ herself, but, to the audience’s delight, she would catch herself out and would quickly appear grumpy again. She got so many laughs and added an unexpected magnetism to the whole play.

Now, some might call this ‘upstaging’, but the director of this play ran with it - the more the better. After all, someone is always watching you and if you can capture the audience, you have met your mission.

I think that, unlike the leads, the chorus are the least detectable deceivers. 

They sort of fly under the radar and can have tremendous fun doing it. They have a duty to the notes they sing and the movements they dance, but they can experiment with personality and nuance often in ways the leads cannot.

I also believe that, for many musicals, the chorus is delegated the best songs.

You only have to think of the epic numbers in Les Miserables or Sweeney Todd to understand the lasting impact a brilliant chorus of rallying voices can have on audiences. There’s an energy in collective enthusiasm that carries far beyond the footlights. 

But there is a risk, particularly with community theatre, that the chorus will outperform the leads.

In an environment where everyone who got into the chorus capably auditioned for the lead role, competition can be pretty cutthroat.

It does place pressure on the leads to make sure they’re not just good, but great. Otherwise our gaze will be drawn to those around them. 

Some might say this is unfair and that the chorus members should blend. But, having started in the chorus myself, I know that it is in those little moments when you become memorable to an audience that performers actualise their own worth. 

That they ARE capable and they ARE valuable. 

And that maybe one day the lead role will be within their grasp.

I’m that audience member.

I not only notice those little moments, but I seek them out. 

I always investigate the chorus because, more than anyone else on that stage, they are there to have fun and to please the crowd.

We play lead roles for ourselves. We play chorus for everyone. 

So when the solos are over and the dialogue comes to a pause, I cannot help but search that crowd of chorus to track down that dynamic talent.

There she is. A distracting smile. Shining. Unmasked.

Mission accomplished.

She has me entranced.