Karagiozis - Scenario

Scenario

Karagiozis is a poor hunchbacked Greek, his right hand is always depicted long, his clothes are ragged and patched, and his feet are always bare. He lives in a poor cottage (Greek: παράγκα) with his wife Aglaia and his three sons, during the times of the Ottoman Empire. The scene is occupied by his cottage in the left, and the Sultan's Palace (Sarayi) on the far right.

Because of his poverty, Karagiozis uses mischievous and crude ways to find money and feed his family.

Students of folklore divide Karagiozis' tales in two major categories: the 'Heroics' and the 'Comedies'. The Heroics are tales based on tradition or real stories involving the times under Ottoman rule, and Karagiozis is presented as a helper and assistant of an important hero.

Puppeteers devise their own original tales, however there are many 'traditional' tales that have descended orally from earlier puppeteers and are accepted as 'canon' with slight alterations between the players. Most of them are formulaic and have the following layout (but with a wide improvisional variety), and often involving interaction with the audience:

1. Karagiozis appears in the scene with his 3 sons dancing and singing. He welcomes the audience and has a comical dialogue with his children. He then enters his cottage
2. The Vizier or a local Ottoman lord reports that he has a problem and needs someone to perform a deed
3. Hadjiavatis obeys and starts announcing the news (usually a singing sequence) until Karagiozis hears about it
4. Initially annoyed by Hadjiavatis' shouting, he finds it's an opportunity to gain money (either by helping the Vizier or not) and sometimes asks Hadjiavatis to aid him.
5. Karagiozis either attempts to help the Vizier or fool him. The regular characters (see below) appear one at a time in the scene (they often appear with an introducing song which is standard for each of them); Karagiozis has a funny dialogue with them, mocks them, fools them, or becomes annoyed and ousts them violently.
6. Finally, Karagiozis is either rewarded by the Vizier or his mischief is revealed and he's punished - usually by the Vizier's bodyguard, Veligekas.

Some of the most known tales are:

• Alexander the Great and the accursed snake
• Karagiozis the doctor
• Karagiozis the cook
• Karagiozis the senator
• Karagiozis the scholar
• Karagiozis the prophet
• Karagiozis the fisherman
• Karagiozis and the gorilla
• Karagiozis and the ghost