Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Parabasis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Greek comedy, the parabasis (plural parabases) is a point in the play when all of the actors leave the stage and the chorus are left to address the audience directly. The chorus partially or completely abandon their dramatic role to talk to the audience on a topic completely irrelevant to the subject of the play. For example, in the play The Wasps by Aristophanes the first parabasis is about Aristophanes' career as a playwright to date, while the second parabasis is shorter, and contains a string of in-jokes about local characters who would be well known to the ancient Athenian audience (e.g. the politician Cleon).
A parabasis usually consists of three songs (S) alternating with three speeches (s) in the order S-s-S-s-S-s. The first speech often ends with a passage which to be rattled off very quickly (theoretically in one breath - called a 'pnigos'). The parabasis is exclusively a feature of Old Comedy, and as the overall role of the chorus declined, the parabases were abandoned.