Playing to the Audience:

The Relationship between the Chorus and the Audience in

Sophocle's Oedipus The King

This paper will examine the relationship between the audience and the chorus in Sophocle's
Oedipus the King through spatial arrangement, emotional intensification, and social status. Examining
this relationship provides insight into the immediacy of the original production of this play for
Athenians in the 5th century BCE in Athens.
In order to attempt to better understand the chorus-to-audience relationship, we must begin our
examination prior to the performance of the play. The tragedies were performed during festivals, such
as the City Dionysia, which was a religious, state, and social affair. The Theatre of Dionysos was
located in the sanctuary of the the god, just beneath the Parthenon and the Acropolis. One could argue
that due to this location beneath a monument of the power of the polis and inside a religious sanctuary,
the theatre is a politically and religiously charged space.
As the audience entered the theatre, one can assume that they would be aware of their
surroundings. They would have walked through the sanctuary and had a clear view of the Acropolis as
they climbed to their seats in the theatron. As inhabitants of Athens participating in a festival, they
bring a social dynamic to the political and religious stirrings already present in the theatre.
As the play begins, the suppliants and priest, possibly a part of the chorus, enter the orchestra via
one of the paradoi, the same way the audience entered. They may have entered from the stage left
parados which would lead to the Athenian agora and the Acropolis. Already there is a connection
between the audience and the chorus.
Oedipus then enters upstage and center from the skene doors and addresses the suppliants. This
stage picture creates a mirror image to that of the audience. The audience sits beneath the Parthenon, a
symbol of state power, as this portion of the chorus supplicates themselves as an audience to the
powerful Oedipus, who has entered from his palace, the skene. The architectural space becomes power
above audience and mirrored on the stage with audience beneath power (see figures 1 and 2). After the
parados, the chorus will assume the role of audience to the events. This mirroring will continue for the
rest of the play.
The priest, in the prologue, informs Oedipus and the audience that the suppliants present are of
every age and that all of the other people are also acting as suppliants in the agora (15-20). The chorus
has now been established as inhabitants of Thebes just as the audience members are inhabitants of
Athens. The two groups have an established commonality.
Oedipus commands the priest and suppliants to call the Theban people, the chorus, to assemble
(144). The priest has only a few lines and then, in the text, comes the first choral ode. Obviously the
suppliants and priest must leave as they have been commanded and fetch the others. They more than
likely exit via the stage left parados in which I am assuming they enter due to its relationship to the
agora. After a pause, the chorus enters, also probably from stage left. David Seales in his book Vision
and Stagecraft in Sophocles, says that this exit and entrance is not awkward, as has been said, and
should not be hurried since the “ample space of the theatre facilitates such movements” (Seales 220).
He does not assume that the priest and suppliants join the rest of the citizens, but I ask: “Why not?”
They too are citizens and have already forged a connection with the audience. It would make sense for
the priest who brought the suppliants before Oedipus to lead them away and then return again with the
rest of the Thebians.
At this point in the performance, the relationship between the chorus and audience has already
been established through a common social status and role of witness to the dramatic action. The
audience now has a special connection with the chorus and is more likely to share the concerns and
emotions presented by the chorus.
 Due to space, I will not provide detailed examples for the emotional intensification of a chorus of
actors performing the same reaction. However, this intensification occurs in several forms: the reaction
of the chorus during the episodes to the action, the reaction of the chorus during the odes to the
previous episode, and the actions of the chorus as stage directions found in the text. The most obvious
example here is the final episode when the blind Oedipus enters. The chorus expresses horror at
Oedipus' condition and say that they are not able to look at him (1303). This emotional moment must
have been incredibly intense for the audience with the opening of the doors and entrance of Oedipus,
the lament and shock of the chorus en masse, and then their abrupt shift to look away from him.
The mirroring and likely reference to the Athenian agora in the staging also provides an element
of immediacy to the audience. In this way, there could possibly be allusion to recent events in the
choral odes. R.W.B. Burton in his book The Chorus in Sophocles' Tragedies refers to possible moments
of contemporary allusion. He sites the choral ode provoked by Jocasta's speech to disregard prophesies.
According to Burton, there is an inscriptions from only a few years earlier that stemmed from such
ideas in Athens and reads “oracles must be trusted” (Burton 156). There may also be a connection via
the pestilence suffered by the chorus if the play was performed in the early years of the Peloponnesian
war when crops were destroyed by invasion and a plague overtook Athens.

- Katrina Bondari
 Plates

Parthenon Power
Mirrored
skene Power

theatron Audience
orchestra Mirrored
Audience

Stage Directions

Upstage

Stage Stage
Right Left

Downstage
Audience