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Humour and Status Reversal in Greek Shadow Theatre
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
Extract
Traditional plays of the Greek shadow theatre deal with the adventures of Karaghiozis, a poor Greek who is the embodiment of πovηρία (cunning, slyness). Plays of the comic type, and more specifically, plays in which Karaghiozis assumes a position requiring certain skills, have a standard narrative structure or plot which can be summarized as follows : A wealthy Turkish pasha or vizier, looking for a person to perform a job which requires certain skills, meets Hadziavatis, the subservient town crier, and asks for his help in finding such a person. Hadziavatis agrees at once, sets off, and invariably meets Karaghiozis, who, upon learning of the position the Turk is trying to fill, immediately claims to possess the prerequisite skills. Widi much humour and cleverness Karaghiozis convinces first Hadziavatis and then the Turk that he can in fact perform the job. Karaghiozis then appears on stage as the skilled person widi the appropriate costume or equipment (cook’s hat, doctor’s bag, secretary’s writing implements, etc.). He is transformed from a poor uneducated man of low status into a skilled educated man of high status. In that position he deceives several stock characters, such as Omorphonios, Dionysios and Stavrakas, until his deceit is finally exposed and he is chased off stage.
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- Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1976
References
1. For the customary tripartite classification of Greek shadow theatre plays into comic plays, historic or heroic plays, and plays inspired by traditional folktales, see
Biris, K.,
Nea Estia, II (1952), 35
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I (Athens, 1971), p. ξζ
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2. Plays of this type include ‘Karaghiozis the Secretary’, ‘Karaghiozis the Spiritualist’, ‘Karaghiozis the Baker’, ‘Karaghiozis the Doctor’, ‘Karaghiozis the Prime Minister for Two Hours’, etc.
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22. Crumrine, op. cit., p. 21. Important psychological mechanisms which underline this process of learning by dissociation and which lead to deeper insights into this type of behaviour have been examined by Berlyne, D. in his studies of conflict, arousal and exploration: ‘Curiosity and Exploration’, Science, CLIII (1966), 25–33 Google Scholar, and ‘Conflict and Arousal’, Scientific American, CCXV (1966), 82-7. He proposes the term ‘collative stimulus properties’ for those properties which can be generally described as novel, surprising, complex or puzzling. When such stimuli are perceived, they give rise to conceptual conflict and cognitive dissonance, which in turn produce a state of arousal, heightened attentiveness and increased motivation. This leads to a desire to acquire information which will eliminate the conceptual conflict caused initially by the collative stimulus properties. The kind of learning which is initiated by such stimuli ‘can give rise not only to particularly rapid and lasting acquisition of knowledge but also, above all, to knowledge in which ideas are fruitfully pieced togedier in coherent structures’ (‘Conflict and Arousal’, p. 84).
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