Turkey
Shadow theatre arrived in the country from Oriental Asia in the 16the century, whether brought in by gypsies arriving from the Northwest of India, according to some, or from Egypt, following the Ottoman victory over the Manelucos, in 1517, according to others. The genre would first have been introduced into Egypt as from the 12th century by Arabic traders who first set up trading posts before then expanding to sultanates in Java. One piece of evidence pointing to these Javanese origins is the decorative göstermelik character, which sometimes depicts a garden or the tree of life, and serves here as is the case with the Javanese kayon, to mark the beginning of the performance.
Turkey, as a Muslim country, faces the problem of getting round the prohibition against reproducing the human form. However, according to the 12th century Arabic author Umar ibn al-Farid whenever the light passed through the leather figures then 《they could not be humans in body and thus are not susceptible to consideration as imitations of human beings, which would enter into rivalry with the power of creativity, exclusive to God》 (Quoted by Metin And, p.40, who adds that the attitude in Turkey on this issue proved far more liberal than in Arabic countries).
In this comic theatrical style, irrespective of the piece under performance, the main character is Karagöz, who gave his name to the entire genre, and who is accompanied by his companion Hacivat. Formerly, the best known legend tells of how in the sultanate of Orhan (1326-1359), Karagöz, worked as an ironsmith and Hacivat as a stonemason on a mosque then under construction. As they would not stop telling jokes to make the other labourers laugh, the project was getting nowhere. The sultan, in a fit of anger, ordered the two misfits to be executed. He immediately regrets his decision and one of his servants then invents shadow theatre to bring the two characters back to life and in order to continue to amuse and entertain the people. Karagöz is portrayed as a hunchback, with one arm longer than the other. He represents good sense and popular inspiration in contrast to Hacivat, who is less free in his ways, more conservative as well as more insolent.
The puppets have joints and are cut out of camel skin. The clarity of the screen, previously ensured by an oil light placed beneath to create an unsteady luminous effect has now been substituted by static electricity, which does not reproduce such an effect. The particularity of this genre, which curiously is also exclusive to the shadow theatre of Taiwan, lies in how the rod enabling the body of the figure to be handled is attached by pieces of leather at the shoulder level and forming a right angle with the puppet; thus, the rod is set horizontally. Various of the characters also have one jointed arm carried out by another rod attached in the same way to the wrist. The legs also frequently contain joints and it is the movement of the body that agitates them. Certain puppeteers manage to turn around on themselves and look in the opposite direction. To generate this movement, the means of supporting the body are a fine foot of iron, stuck on a wooden rod for reinforcement, and attached above the back on the exterior with a short loop of leather. On average, the figures measure between 25 and 35 centimetres in height. Their clothing resembles those of the clowns and the jesters that perform in every type of number, as we may appreciate from certain illustrations. When the puppets are not on screen, they are placed on either side at the foot of the screen. The theatrical technique is highly simple and needs placing within a context of comic spectacle in which, rather than some more delicate movement, the puppets engage in head-over-hells or stage fights.
79. Karagöz, the lead character in Turkish shadow theatre and his friend Hacivat. At the centure is a göstermelik, representing a lemon tree and symbolising the beginning of the performacne. Turkey. (20th century, 2.1 TU58, 2.1 TU81, 2.1 TU57)
The repertoire consists of simple stories that are more plot than play as effectively only serving as the pretext for serving up comic situations and generating amusing responses. In The Asylum of the Insane (Tmarhane), following on from a converstation with one of the asyum escapees, Karazöz seems to turn somewhat strange and ends up getting himself interned but his doctor proves even madder than himself before he gets released by his friend Hacivat. In the The Boat/ Kaya (Kayik), Karagöz and Hacivat become smugglers on the Bosporus and run into unexpected to difficulties. The pay The Witches (Cazular)may be performed in two different ways: two witches confront each other in magic combat within the scope of which each wishes to prove their own magical superiority, and suddenly Karagöz sees himself successively transformed into a dwarf, a turtle, a goat, a frog. They even have adapted pays by Moliere in which the Miser, the Hypocrite or the Hypochondriac were incarnated by Karagöz. The other characters are sourced from different pays and characterised by their caricature nature: women, Çelebi, the dandy, Tiriaki, the opium addict, Bebe Ruhi, the speaking, boastful dwarf, Aceru, the Persian rader, Arnavut, the choleric Albanian who is always ready to shoot, Matiz, the drunk, Ermen, the Armenian, Yuhudi, the Jew, Bokana, the Bohemian, Ferha, the young love, and the witch.
Karagöz Theatre is based upon the main character who lends his name to the genre and a free individual, always more than ready to set off on entangled, fantastic and frequently excessively obscene adventures. With his long arm gesticulating in representation of his speech, the character got transformed into a tool of political and social criticism and effectively serving as a form of satirical press.
At the heart of the Ottoman Empire, while the sultan would frequently be spared ridicule, the same was not the case for the grand vizier, his ministers, generals and other dignitaries. 《Karagöz Theatre was frequently utilised as a political weapon that criticised the government and social abuses prevailing at the time in an inspired fashion. A foreigner would feel that, in a country dominated by an absolute power, Karagöz represented unlimited liberty》 (Metin And, p.105) However, with the transformations in Turkey, and the emergence of new means of communication, this spectacle to a large extent lost a lot of tis contemporary relevance and, consequently, a large part of tis audience.
This Turkish theatre genre expanded out through the Middle East to Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria and included a specific puppeteer in Egypt. The genre remained true to its Karagöz theatre origins and always functioning as a means of ridiculing the powers that be and the colonisers, especially the French, and ended up subject to prohibition almost everywhere. The genre had already reached Greece and the Balkans during the reign of the Ottoman Empire. In Greece, this theatrical style survived independence in 1832 thanks to the mationalist and highly anti-Turkish stance that is still retained. Karagöz, here Karagyosis, surrounded by his family takes up in opposition to the sultan whose daughter he kidnaps. As his accomplices are Hadjyavatis, the Greek reincarnation of Hacivat, Barbayorgos, the Turkish Baba Himmet, and Velifuecas, who incorporates resemblances of Matiz. In the late 20th century, renowned performers of Greek shadow theatre, such as Spatharis and Mixopoulos, very much kept the tradition alive and attempted its modernisation.
80. Bebe Ruhi, the quarrelsome and talkative dwarf. Turkey. (20th century, 2.1 TU48)
81. A vessel carrying a dignitary, Turkey. (20th century, 2.1 TU1)
Naturally, this theatrical genre represented a source of entertainment. However, it would be just as erroneous to minimise this aspect as it would be to consider it the only soure of interest. Its ritual function detailed above is only one of the aspects of tis social role. Given tis persistence down through time, the theatre has known how to keep strong the ties that bind it to the common culture. Should this be entirely supplanted by modern culture, should Father Christmas and Mickey come to replace Krishna and Guan Yu, will swe still be able to talk about genuinely original Indonesian and Chinese cultures? In countries retaining high levels of illiteracy, the oral literature enables stories to be handed down and, in the shadown theatre formant, more easily reach the population in general and especially when adding in the magic of the performance. Indeed, this culture, made up of stories known to all, extends beyond the dichotomy between literary culrture and popular culture; it is shared by all social classes and unites a civilisation.
This repertoire is more than a set of narratives. In a subconscious fashon, the genre conveys a prticular conception of the world, and a moraltiy that rules social relations and establishes codes of conduct. In addition to the proverb 《Tell me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are》 we might very well add: 《Tell me what stories you like and I’ll tell you which civilisation you belong to》.
What shall be the future of these shadow theatre genres, so closely bound up with religion, in societies undergoing modernisation, in which there are ever fewer believers and especially in the city, and where cinema and television provide such challenging competition? Some Asian countries have attempted to preserve them through awarding subsidies. However, that runs the risk of transforming them into museum pieces. There have been artists who attempted to modernise the genre through changes to its repertoire; in India, portraying the life of Gandhi; in Indonesia, one shadow theatre company created a piece telling the stories of animals, in particular pre-historic animals, as well as stories drawing on the bible while in China, the lances and halberds were replaced by plnaes and tanks in productions featuring the soldeirs of the Red Army in place of the cavalry of times gone by.
However, with the charm of novelty having faded, the traditional stories are still able to attract audiences. Cinema, itself also the projection of shadows onto a screen based upon printed film rather than the leather puppet figures, proved able to advance down two different paths: that of realism and that of the fantastic;that first born with the arrival of the first filmed train (the first film ever produced by the Lumière brothers) and that created by Méliès, restored by cartoon drawing and by computer graphics. However, cinema when attempting within the framework of the fantastic to interpret these myths, ends up looking ridiculous.
Should it not be shadow theatre, which leads the way in representing
mythology, that speicalises in this them as a means of being able to
survive as an original art form? Thus was the understanding of Goethe,
who chose a story form Gree mythology. Preserving shadow theatre is
fundamental to preventing such mythology not being constrained to
merely some object of historical stuey or the source of children’s sotires.
So that its strangeness continues to shadow the siprit, shadow theatre
has to be preserved, which needs the gods for tis survival just as they
need it in order to continue remaining among us.
82. Meeting of Çelebi, a jester with a cage, and a beautiful girl with a fan. Turkey. (20th century, 2.1 TU23, 2.1 TU24)