Meddah (Public story teller and mimic)
Folk
Plays - Spectacle Plays - Shows
MEDDAH
(Public
story teller and mimic)
Being a meddah,
who is a storyteller, is an art of mimic. It’s a show whose curtain, curtain,
stage, decors and costume are only assembled on an artist.
Meddah (the storyteller)
sits on a chair and tells stories. His subjects are events of daily lives, tales,
epics, stories and legends.
The accessories
of a meddah are a handkerchief and a walking stick. He generally begins with
cliches of stories from which funny, moral and literary results can be drawn
out such as “raviyan-ahbar” and “nakılan-I asar” and “muhaddısan-I rüzigar şöyle
rivayet ederler ki” and begins to tell his story listing his characters. Meddah
is the person who makes his story’s characters speak in the language and dialect
of his suburb. Meddah is the only artist and player of a theatre work which
has more than one players. This art could be seen in the Ottoman Palace, cities,
towns on ramadan nights, in circumcision feasts and cates especially when reading
was not developed but when listening was more popular. The continuation of this
art today is the showmen who make stand-up comedies.