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MOVEMENT IN TWO DIMENSIONS
changed into an ass, as in one of the Turkish plays; and finally he was involved in a naval battle and the whole play ended with a grand procession of gods and men, tall, short, fat, and thin, viziers, vagabonds, soldiers and sultans, demons and dervishes. The element of magic mingled with rough comedy was common in the European shadow play during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, while processions in various forms became a speciality of the French shadow theatre.
Karagoz was still popular in the cafes and bazaars of Istanbul and Ankara when Hellmut Ritter, the translator of many of the traditional plays, visited those towns some twenty years ago. A number of clever showmen were still working at that time; Ritter mentions in particular a post-office official called Hayali Kiiciik Ali who operated in Ankara, and Acikgoz, a glazier, at Istanbul. Kiiciik Ali died in 1959, but he has been succeeded by three or four of his pupils. Yet performances appear to be given less and less frequently. Public shows take place only during the carnival month of Ramadan, and the entertainment is otherwise confined to the home, the showmen going round rather as professional conjurers attend private parties.
In Athens, on the other hand, Karagoz is very much alive. Just before and during the war years the great showman Mollas extended and enriched the material to include Greek historical pieces. His stage was much larger than that of the Turks, about 20 ft. wide and 4J ft. high, and his figures, too, were larger, averaging 2 ft. in height, and more varied. Mollas used iron rods instead of wooden ones to manipulate the shades and he worked in a permanently established theatre, in the open air in summer and indoors during the winter months. His gifted contemporaries, Markos Xanthos and Konstantin Manos, used similar methods; and their work is being carried on today by Y. Charidimos, son of another famous showman, Christos Charidimos.
In the Greek plays Karagoz and his slapstick are shown only as a curtainraiser, though this may well last for more than half an hour. The main feature, going on for about four hours, is concerned with some purely Greek theme such as the struggle for independence, in which a great bearded Turk called Aly Pasha, celebrated for his terrible rages, plays a conspicuous part, moving very expressively with a backward inclination of the body. The Greek showmen make use of a device not known in the traditional Karagoz entertainment by which the characters suddenly change the direction in which they
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