TURKEY’S “PUNCH AND JUDY”

Evening Star, Issue 22524, 17 December 1936, Page 19

TURKEY’S “PUNCH AND JUDY”

OLD LOVES RETURN TO FAVOUR The old Turkish theatre has been revived for a short spell in connection with the Balkan festival at Istanbul. Despite : the attempts to Westernise Turkish art, Turkish feeling still clings to meddah, karagoz, and orta oyunu. Tho karagoz, in particular, winch is something similar to the English “ Punch and Judy ” lives in the memory of those who are now over 20. In “ Karagoz,” its main personage, who is credited with much wit and still more good sense, the Turk used to see himself, even more than in Nasreddiu Hodja, that other popular figure of Turkish tradition. It is a much controverted question whether -Karagoz and his intimate friend, Hadjivat, ever lived. While some maintain that the Turkish karagoz has evolved. from the Chinese shadow theatre also well known in Mongolia, P.ersia, and Arabia, popular tradition knows its two main personages as tho foreman of the workmen engaged in the erection of tho Big Mosque at Brussa. The then Sultan Bayazid Yildirin, in a lit of anger, Had them executed, but regretting his act, subsequently ordered the two friends to be shown as puppets in the marionettes theatre. The orta oyunu, like karagoz, had no pretension to any literary perfection. Its main aim was to make the audience laugh which was usually attained by imitations of peasants and all the various nationalities of which the Ottoman Empire was composed. Its merit rested less with the author than with the performers whose happy improvisations constituted an irresistible attraction.