On the evenings of Tuesday 21st & Wednesday 22nd July, a traditional Turkish shadow puppet show will be performed at Parc Kalkan. 

Local anthropologist, Tricia Emptage, gave KTLN an intruiging insight into the background to this ancient art form. 

She tells us where it originated and about some of the characters.  Here is her report.  More details about the performances are at the end.

"As my friends and those who have read my book, The Road to Ruins, will know, I have to pass the Letoon amphitheatre which is very close to my house, virtually every day.  From when it was originally built, way back in the fourth century BCE, the Letoon amphitheatre, one of Lycia’s largest, was used mainly for theatrical performances of a religious nature.

At Letoon these were associated with the pagan deities of the Lycians, Greeks and Romans – in particular Leto, Apollo and Artemis.  The tradition of gladiatorial spectacles and throwing ‘misfits’ such as early Christians to wild beasts was never as popular in the eastern empire as it was in Rome and the west. 

When Christianity was formally adopted by the Roman Empire in the fourth century CE the pagan temples were allowed to fall into decay or, in some cases, were destroyed by professional temple-wreckers acting on behalf of the state.  The Olympic games were banned because they were seen as a celebration of paganism.  Christian churches were built in the cities, often using stones from the earlier temples.  Early orthodox Christianity associated theatre with paganism, and the amphitheatres fell into disuse and were not repaired following damage by successive earthquakes.

However, music, dancing and entertainment were, and still are universal – people everywhere in time and space enjoy having fun and celebrating major life events such as marriage, the birth of a child and so  on.  As in Europe, troupes of nomadic entertainers travelled between villages and towns and performed for the inhabitants.  Comedy, then as now, was very popular, as were competitive sports such as camel racing and wrestling.  During the early Ottoman period (from 1453) for most people this was the only organised entertainment available to them.

Some time in the sixteenth century the shadow theatre was introduced from Egypt – it is possible that the art form originated in Java where it has always been popular.  The puppets are two dimensional and are back-lit so their shadows are projected through a two dimensional screen.   This is obviously an inexpensive and very portable form of theatre that can be easlily transported by the nomadic performers from place to place.

The earliest puppets were the grotesque dancers and jesters which had preceded the shadow theatre, but over time the shadow tradition became formalised and certain stories and characters recurred and became embedded in folk lore and tradition.  One of the earliest of these was Karagoz (Black Eye) whose emergence as a central character was recorded as early 16th century by which time the shadow theatre was fully established, and Karagoz reflected a “rich cross-section of Turkish culture”.

Shadow theatre performances took place in old Istanbul and other towns and the relatively isolated villages, where almost all of the people were illiterate.  The stories became standardised in both style and content and many were learned almost by heart by the enthusiastic audiences.  Performances took place in the palaces of the sultans, but in this case the bawdy versions popular in the villages were ‘cleaned up’ for the more refined audience. 

The music and dance reflected the differing styles of the many isolated regions of the country, in which there are reputedly 1500 forms of traditional dance.   As in other forms of folk entertainment the stories represented a range of moral symbolism, parody and satire that reflected the cultures of its time.  Much of the entertainment is in the form of ‘slap-stick’ humour, but there is a more sinister aspect to some of the characters which would certainly not meet modern standards of ‘political correctness’.  In this respect there are parallels with the English traditional Punch and Judy, in which wife beating, child abuse and so on are the subject of puppet comedy for small children!

In the shadow theatre the female roles, for the most part minor charcters in the stories, were played by men.  On the whole the females are portrayed as faithful (but only just!) wives and gossips.  Other characters are exaggerated, and sometimes cruel, representations of minority groups. Bebe Ruhi for example, is a dwarf with a speech impediment and various ethnic groups are parodied and stereotyped, to the glee of the Turkish audiences. 

Tiriyaki, portrayed as Persian, is an opium addict and the Franc character is dressed in a costume that ridicules the Byzantine Emperors.  There are minor characters who are Albanians – portrayed as ignorant and boastful,  Armenians, Arabs, Persians and Kurds.  Regional accents and styles of dance and music are used to identify and mock the different characters.  Himmet the woodcutter and Laz the boatman are regulars, as are Celebi, the dandy and a drunkard whose speeches make no sense at all (I know the feeling!).

The central characters in all performances of shadow theatre are Karagoz and Hacivat.  Hacivat (Pilgrim who has been to Mecca) uses flowery language and is well informed about every subject – botany, poetry and history, to name a few.  Karagoz is a an unemployed rogue who makes fun of Hacivat and very often outwits Hacivat’s pedantic opinions in common language.  The humour relies on double entendre and mixing up Turkish grammer so the the meanings are reversed and so become totally absurd – again I can identify with this but when I do it it is not deliberate!

Performances of shadow theatre are becomeing less frequent as skilled artists die out and young people prefer the more modern entertainment offered by TV and film.  I have been in Turkey since 2000 and have never seen it, so I am delighted to let you know that at last it is coming to Kalkan later this month.

For two consecutive nights in July – Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd July - there will be performances of the traditional Karagoz and Celebi shadow puppet shows in the garden at Parc Kalkan, next to the Kartin supermarket.  The shows will start at 9.30pm, preceded by a short explanatory talk in English.

For these nights only, a special set price meal is on offer, or there are snacks for those who just want to enjoy a drink from the bar.  Further information can be obtained either from Tricia Emptage (0537 790 8689) or the manager of Parc Kalkan, Cenk (0532 275 8576)".

Tricia Emptage is the author of Kalkan’s latest best-seller, The Road to Ruins. To see the KTLN review of this superb book – click here

Photographs courtesy of Emin Senyer, www.karagoz.net  This website has lots of interesting facts about the Turkish puppet theatre.