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Spotlight
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Shadow Play |
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Many of the summer cultural festivals on Crete showcase
traditional forms of entertainment dating back centuries, which,
partly due to the advent of cinema and television are becoming
increasingly uncommon in the public arena. Shadow play is one of
those forms. This performance art typically involves the use of
string puppets manipulated behind an illuminated screen—the shadows
creating an illusion of moving figures. Originally, shadow play is
believed to have originated in China when a favourite concubine of
Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty died. The emperor couldn't come to
terms with his loss and summoned his courtiers to bring her back to
him. The courtiers made a model out of donkey leather animated using
separate pieces with painted clothes. They used an oil lamp to make
her shadow move –thus bringing her back to life. ‘Karagiozis’, the
Greek form of shadow theatre, arrived from the East and was
extremely popular during the Ottoman rule. It derives from the
Turkish tradition of shadow play called ’Karagöz’ and ‘Hacivat’
after the chief protagonists - these characters becoming
‘Karagiozis’ and ’Hadjiavatis’ in Greek.
The storylines of ‘Karagiozis’ are often adapted to meet contemporary
social and political circumstances, but there are some common characters
that have survived the test of time. Karagiozis himself is generally
represented as an ugly, hunchbacked figure: he is the voice of the
people—poor, out of work, often resorting to petty theft and getting
into trouble, he pokes fun at bureaucracy and those in power. Other
typical characters include Hadjiavatis, Karagiozis’ friend—sometimes
represented as honest, in other versions as a wily thief - ‘Sir
Dionysios’, a supposed aristocrat who always wears a top hat, ‘Stavrakas’:
a coward and a bully, who Karagiozis teases, and the Pasha or Vizier—the
Turkish Ottoman authority figure.
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Satire and Mass-Communication
| Theatre has always been a means of
satirising—but puppet shows are somehow different. For a start,
a theatre as such means a concrete building, subject to rent,
and thereby reliant on funds and patronage. And it can be closed
down. Actors were (and are), employees, playwrights frequently
commissioned by those in authority. During the Middle Ages a
certain amount of satire was allowed, even encouraged as a
public relations exercise: to demonstrate to the plebeians the
benign benefice of rulers—in the UK it’s still done now from
time to time: ‘Showing that the Queen/Prime Minister/Archbishop
can enjoy a joke, Prince Charles is one of the lads, really’,
but in Medieval times you could only go so far, and those
long-handled reins could swiftly become a noose if you fell out
of favour. |
Historically, shadow or puppet theatre was a
travelling show, performed in open spaces needing a minimal
amount of props. It was a one man operation, the
‘Karagiozopaihti’ (puppet master) manipulating all the figures
behind the screen and supplying different voices for each of the
characters. So, anonymity (and a relatively easy get-away if
needs be!) afforded greater freedom of expression than some
other art forms. Karagiozis was a special event: In rural
villages it was typically performed only at yearly religious
festivals— with a captive audience and a big turnout In the days
before mass-communication, through humour and satire, Karagiozis
had a valuable social function: passing information between
communities and updating people with contemporary social,
cultural and political events. |
From our photos you can see that our festival
summer on Crete produced various modern variants on the theme,
which were enjoyable for all. We give a nod to Shakespeare here
— maybe trying to cover his backside after having being a wee
bit dangerous with his play in the final speech from a Midsummer
Night’s Dream?
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended.
That you have but slumb’red here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme
No more yielding than a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend….” |
English Cousins: Punch and Judy
Many
of our readers on Crete will be unfamiliar with the English puppet show “Punch
and Judy”. This traditional show, now mostly consigned to summer entertainment
at the seaside, clearly draws its roots from the ancient traditions of shadow
play.
 It was first seen in England during the reign of Charles II: ‘The Merry
Monarch’. Charles II came to the throne after the Puritanical rule of Oliver
Cromwell. During Cromwell’s time ‘having fun’ was seen as being immoral —
consequently, entertainment of any form was banned. So when Charles came to
power, the arrival of ‘Punchinello’ - as presented by Pietro Gimonde ‘Signor
Bologna’, a travelling showman from Italy - was greeted with huge enthusiasm.
Initially, like Karagiozis, Punch and Judy was a marionette show, later, when
marionette shows started to fall out of favour with the paying public, Punch and
Judy were transformed into a glove puppets—this gave the show an added
dimension, as it meant that the characters could pick up objects. The basic
story line is extremely violent and now considered by some to be politically
incorrect. Punch, the anarchic “Lord of Misrule”, wields a stick - the original
‘slapstick’ that lent its name to the comedy genre - and attacks all the other
characters in the show.
 These include his wife Judy, their baby, the policeman
and the hangman, all the while squawking his catchphrase: “That’s the way to do
it”, however, the story line is often adapted and embellished for local
circumstances. Punch and Judy Puppeteers are known as ‘professors’, this in
itself is a way of having a dig at authority. As with Karagiozis, humour and
satire are central to the performance—professors have also been known to use the
show as a way of ‘naming and shaming’ people in the community. A relatively
recent episode of Midsomer Murders — a TV detective series which presents a
picture postcard caricature of the English village—has an interesting plot where
a Punch and Judy Professor is murdered and the script of the show is used to
identify local fraudsters. Typically, a Punch and Judy performance is supposedly
children’s entertainment, but due to its fundamentally brutal plot it is frowned
upon in some quarters. Some seaside resorts have outlawed the show on the
grounds that it glorifies domestic violence, and those modern variants that
still survive are often ‘toned-down’ versions of the original. You can find out
more about ‘Mr Punch’ on the
www.punchandjudy.org
website.
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