Karagoz, literally Black-Eye, is the hero of the
Turkish shadow play or theatre. Uneducated but with plenty of native
wit, he inevitably gets the better of his gentle friend Hacivad, who is
no match for Karagoz despite his education. For centuries the zill-i
hayal (imaginary shadow), as the shadow play was called in the past,
entertained Turkish audiences. It is believed by some that the play was
first performed for the Ottoman Sultan Selim I (1512-1520) in Egypt
following his conquest of the Mamelukes. According to the 17th century
Turkish chronicler Evliya Celebi, however, Karagoz was first performed
at the Ottoman palace during the reign of Bayezid I (1389-1402). Shadow
play is known to have been widely performed for the public and in
private houses between the 17th and 19th centuries, particularly during
the month of Ramazan, when there were nightly performances (except on
the 27th night of Ramazan, the most sacred night of the year for
Moslems) in the coffee houses. Legend attributes the character of
Karagoz to a real person who lived during the reign of Orhan Bey
(1324-1360).
Karagoz derives its name from its principal player.
The story is that a mosque was being built in the then Ottoman capital
of Bursa, and among the labourers were Karagoz and Hacivad, who kept
distracting the others from their work with their humorous repartee. As
a result, construction of the mosque took longer than expected, and
when the angry sultan heard about their antics he had them both
executed. However, the pair of comedians were so sorely missed by the
townsfolk that a man named Seyh Kusteri made images of Karagoz and
Hacivad from camel hide and began to give puppet shows. Karagoz came to
represent the ordinary man in the street forthright and trustworthy. He
is virtually illiterate, usually unemployed, and embarks on money
earning ventures which never work. He is nosy, tactless, often
deceitful and inclined to lewd talk. Like his European counterpart
Punch, he frequently resorts to violence, beating Hacivad and other
characters in the play. Shadow play puppets are coloured and
semi-transparent, with jointed limbs. Light from a lamp behind the
stage reflects their images onto a muslin curtain, around which is a
border of floral material. This curtain is known as the ayna (mirror)
and the light as a sem'a (candle). The latter consists of an oil lamp
with a wick of cotton or string soaked in beeswax. The puppets are made
from camel or water buffalo hide. Worked until it is semi-transparent,
the hide is cut into the desired shape with a special knife and painted
with vegetable pigments. The joints are made by threading strings of
gut through perforations made with a needle. Some of the puppets have
many joints, and are usually 35-40 centimetres high.
Karagoz plays consist of four parts, the mukaddime,
muhavere, fasil and bitis. The mukaddime or introduction always begins
with Hacivad's entry, the puppet moving to the rhythm of the
tambourine. He sings a song known as the semai, which is different at
each performance. After reciting a prayer he declares that he is
searching for a friend, and noisily calls Karagoz to the stage with a
speech which always ends with the words: "Oh, for some amusement".
Karagoz enters on the opposite side and the story begins. There is
always a fight at some point in the play. The other characters are the
drunkard Tuzsuz Deli Bekir carrying a wine bottle, Uzun Efe with his
long neck, Kanbur Tiryaki the opium addict with his pipe, Alti Karis
Beberuhi the eccentric dwarf, the half-witted Denyo, the spendthrift
Civan, and Nigar, who spends her time chasing men. The cast of some
plays may also include dancers, djins, witches, and monsters, as well
as nameless characters such as the Arab (a sweet-seller or beggar who
knows no Turkish), a black servant woman, a Circasian servant girl, an
Albanian watchman (who is noisy and insolent), a Greek (usually a
doctor), an Armenian (a footman or money changer), a Jew (a goldsmith
or scrap dealer), a Laz (a boatman) and a Persian (who recites poetry
with an Azeri accent).
There is just one puppeteer, known variously as
Karagozcu, Hayali or Hayalbaz, assisted by an apprentice, who installs
the curtain and brings the puppets in order of appearance. The
apprentice learns the craft from his master, and eventually sets up on
his own. In the past, the apprentice was assisted by the sandikkar,
responsible for the chest or sandik holding the equipment. The songs
were sung by another member of the team, known as the yardak, and the
tambourine was played by the dairezen. Before the advent of cinema and
radio the Karagoz shadow play was one of the most popular forms of
entertainment in Turkey. The conclusion of each play is short and
customarily consists of an argument between Karagoz and Hacivad, the
latter finally shouting. "You have brought the curtain down, you have
ruined it!" -to which Karagoz replies, "May my transgressions be
forgiven".
