In my previous blogs, I introduced and elaborated on the types of performers and dramatic genres in the early modern Ottoman Empire. While still prominent in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, these dramatic entertainments¹ narrowed down into Karagöz shadow theatre and the forms of Orta Oyunu, that is, Turkish improvisational drama. Eventually, these were also gradually pushed into the periphery through the introduction of Western theatrical forms starting in the early 19th century.

According to some sources, traditional Turkish shadow theatre has a legacy of at least 700 years and was among the most popular dramatic entertainment forms in the Ottoman Empire. Projecting semi-transparent and partly movable coloured leather pieces in the form of certain literary and racial stereotypes onto a screen, shadow theatre derived its content matter from formulaic tropes which were adjusted to topical social and political issues by the puppeteer, known as the Hayalbaz (dreamer), and his helpers. Being composed of Mukaddime (prologue), Muhavere (dialogue), Fasıl (actual play), and Bitiş (epilogue), traditional Turkish shadow theatre follows the framework of recurring characters Hacivat and Karagöz’s encounter, their adventure, and their farewell to the audience.

Image of Karagöz (left) and Hacivat (right) from Bursa Karagöz Museum available via Wikipedia.

While Hacivat is a  witty and urban character with a high-pitched voice, Karagöz is his deep-voiced, naïve, boorish and angry counterpart. These shows combined wordplay, slapstick humour, satire and social criticism to entertain not only children but also adult audiences.

Image of a 1922 Karagöz Magazine (1908-1968) satirizing the defeated Greek forces in the Turkish War of Independence, image accessed via Twitter.

Being performed daily and on special occasions like weddings or religious festivities, traditional shadow theatre became an important social event to provide comic catharsis. Moving on a thin line of associations between the inanimate object and the animated characters, traditional Turkish shadow theatre is based on a mentor system where the chief puppeteer borrows, adds and lends techniques and themes of performance.

But shadow theatre lost its importance with the introduction of Western forms of theatre and the advancement of technology. Despite the many attempts to rejuvenate it, such as through live action versions in Western theatre forms in the 1950s or 1970s, traditional Turkish shadow theatre has been pushed into the periphery of Turkish dramatic performance and is performed today mostly on special occasions like religious festivals.²

Image of live Karagöz performers you can hire via Organizasyonum.net.

However, there are numerous contemporary traditional Turkish shadow theatre practitioners, such as Cengiz Özek, who have revitalized the form in their modern storytelling. One, which Anglophone readers might find interesting, is Hülagu’s Dream of Hamlet that tells Shakespeare’s story through a reinterpretation of traditional shadow theatre.

Image of Cengiz Özek (1964-….) via Facebook.

Image from the Dream of Hamlet (2020-21) by the Karagöz Theater Company via Mimesis Dergisi.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Turkish shadow theatre and Ottoman comedies mutually influenced each other. They initially evolved into Orta Oyunu, an improvisational theatre revolving around the chief characters Kavuklu, the high-pitched-voiced master, and the deep-voiced servant Pişekar, and co-existing with the Tuluat theatre, an amalgam of native Ortaoyunu and Western comedy performed in theatre buildings where they hoped to re-attract Ottoman audiences to native theatre forms. Eventually, however, native Ottoman comedies gradually lost the attention of their audiences against the more appealing competition of predominantly French plays and later non-Turkish plays in the various theatres run by Armenian and Greek performers. The emergence of original Turkish Western theatre plays written by İbrahim Şinasi (1826-1871), Namık Kemal (1840-1888) or Abdülhak Hamit Tarhan (1852-1937), to name a few, also contributed to the demise of the remnants of early modern Ottoman dramatic entertainments, dismissed for their formulaic and repetitive forms. Yet, while these native dramatic forms ceased to be central, they did not just continue to exist as nostalgic shows, but also influenced post-republic Turkish drama, as we cannot speak of a definite breach between pre- and post-republic dramatic entertainment forms.

With the efforts of figures like Komik Naşit (1886-1943)³ and İsmail Dümbüllü (1897-1973), who not only continued to perform in Orta Oyunu plays but also adapted them to the screen and educated many students, the remnants of early modern Ottoman theatre have been not entirely lost.

Image of Komik Naşit as Karagöz via Biyografya.

İsmail Dümbüllü (left) via Pinterest.

This intergenerational transfer of knowledge has been symbolically maintained with the ceremonial transference of the kavuk, a headgear worn by the performers. Not only showing the master and apprentice relationship, the kavuk has become a symbol of almost a relay race for the survival of such entertainments, either in its entirety or as modes to be used in contemporary forms of drama in Turkey.

From left to right, images of the deceased bearers of the kavuk, namely İsmail Dümbüllü, Münir Özkul (1925), Ferhan Şensoy (1951-2021), Rasim Öztekin (1959-2021) via Listelist.

Image from the ceremony of the transference of the kavuk in 2020 where Şevket Çoruh (1973-….) receives it from Rasim Öztekin via Anadolu Agency.

Of course, there are an infinite number of examples of traces of Ottoman dramatic entertainment to be found in post-republic Turkish theatre, but I want to pick up the most influential ones and introduce them to you further by having a look at first Haldun Taner, then Nejat Uygur and finally Ferhan Şensoy.

Haldun Taner (1915-1986) was an academic playwright with first-hand experience of Western dramatic education who transformed Turkish theatre in the 1960s, where his introduction of Brechtian theatre forms in his The Ballad of Ali of Keshan (1964) heavily borrowed from but deconstructed native dramatic forms in bending the stereotypes of what constitutes a hero. Combining Brechtian and improvisational Turkish theatre’s alienation effects, Taner’s characters in almost all his plays are reminiscent of characters from Orta Oyunu and Karagöz, but with a modern interpretation that redefine questions of identity that were near and dear for the Turkish people. As Taner illustrated, “while the Turkish people took pity on Charles Chaplin, they laugh at/with İsmail Dümbüllü,” which shows how much he gave importance to native dramatic traditions which he continued with his re-interpretations.

Image of Haldun Taner via TR dergisi.

Comparatively, Nejat Uygur (1927-2013) and his comedy was marked by the farcical side of native dramatic traditions, which he combined with his interpretation of Western silent film characters. His comedy was marked by a bitter satire against socio-political problems in Turkey regarding high inflation, corruption in politics, unemployment, warmongering, and failings in the health system.

Image of Nejat Uygur criticising the Turkish media with pseudo-microphones of “I don’t see TV”, “I don’t tell TV” and “I don’t hear TV” via Ankara Tanıtım Sayfası.

Through his theatre company consisting of his family members, the self-taught artist Nejat Uygur continued the improvisational theatre traditions of especially Tuluat Tiyatrosu, which his children still continue to perform today.

Ferhan Şensoy (1951-2021) can be considered the last practitioner of experimental re-interpretations of native dramatic traditions that brought novelty to the Turkish theatre from the 1980s until the early 2000s. Founding the Ortaoyuncular Theatre Company, Şensoy combined his education in Western dramatic forms with native traditions by incorporating former veteran performers like Münir Özkul or Engin Günaydın (1933-2012) into his company to continue the master-apprentice relationship that was at the core of native dramatic traditions.

Image of the Ortaoyuncular players from 1988 via Internet Haber.

Dealing with similar socio-political issues with which Nejat Uygur dealt, but more an acrid version of Haldun Taner, Ferhan Şensoy fought against social inequalities, and economic and political corruption through his plays. While his death on the 31st of August 2021 meant the end of an era, his students, now skilled performers, will hopefully continue his efforts to transmit and re-interpret native dramatic entertainments to younger generations.

Image of Ferhan Şensoy from his play Soyut Padişah, The Abstract Sultan (1989), where he criticised neo-liberal politics of Turkey from an imagined Ottoman past, image accessed on YouTube.

To conclude, because of the Westernisation project and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Ottoman dramatic entertainments involuntarily left the stage for more Western forms of drama. However, their influence stretching back to the early modern period is still felt in contemporary Turkish dramatic entertainments, which I have aimed to introduce to a broader international audience through this three-blog series. Let me finish this blog in the diction of such entertainments: Sürç-i lisan eylediysem, affola (If I have offended you with my tongue, may you forgive me).

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[1] Civic parades continued to exist until quite recently where artisans would parade and display their skills in performance on carts or while walking at national holidays following the display of military parades.

[2] The same applies to meddah, improvised storytelling, which had practitioners well into the 1990s, like Münir Özkul, Erol Günaydın, and Tekin Akmansoy, to name a few.

[3] Generations of Komik Naşit’s family members like Adile Naşit, Selim Naşit, Gazanfer Özcan, Fulya Özcan and Naşit Özcan, to name a few, have been continuing Komik Naşit’s legacy as legends of post 1950s Turkish theatre, cinema and TV artists.

Selected Bibliography:

And, Metin. Drama at The Crossroads: Turkish Performing Arts Link Past and Present, East and West. İstanbul: Isis Press, 1991.

And, Metin. Geleneksel Türk Tiyatrosu: Kukla, Karagöz, [1]Ortaoyunu. Ankara: Bilgi, 1969.

And, Metin. Osmanlı Tasvir Sanatları: 1. İstanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2014.

Nutku, Özdemir. Meddahlık ve Meddah Hikayeleri. 2nd ed. Ankara: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Yayını, 1997.

Nutku, Özdemir. Zaman İçinde Zaman. İstanbul: Opus Kitap, 2014.

Oral, Ünver. Canlı Karagöz. İstanbul: Kitabevi, 2015.

Sevengil, Ahmet Refik. Türk Tiyatrosu Tarihi I: Eski Türklerde Dram San’atı. Ankara: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1969.