Tiyatromuzda Modern Kadın Meddah Uygulamalarından İki Örnek: Kadın Olmak - Zilli Şıh
Two Examples from Modern Female Meddah Applıcatıons in Our Theatre: “Kadın Olmak” – “Zilli Şıh”

Author(s): Nurhan Tekerek
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Psychology, Essay|Book Review |Scientific Life, General Reference Works, Geography, Regional studies, Library and Information Science, Sociology
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Tiyatro; Meddahlık; Eril, Kadın; İki Oyun; Çağdaşlaşma; Theatre; Meddah; Masculine; Woman; Two Plays; Modernisation
Summary/Abstract: Meddah is a masculine tradition. This theatre tradition has emerged in the Ottoman period, from the 17th century onwards. It is a genre in which the meddah synthesises the skills of imitation and narration of a story. How can meddah, a masculine tradition, be modernised today? Or can meddah be shared with the audience by an actress? In societies where women are side by side with men in social life, the tradition of meddah, a masculine genre, can and should be undertaken by actresses. Based on this aim, after analysing meddah as a traditional genre, two plays were studied and shared with the audience as an application method. One of these plays is a one-person documentary play that Prof. Dr. Nurhan Tekerek edited-directed-performed from Zeynep Oral’s book “Kadın Olmak”: “Kadın Olmak- Being a Woman, the other is the text “Zilli Şıh- Shake with Bells” written by Haşmet Zeybek and directed and acted by Prof. Dr. Nurhan Tekerek. “Kadın Olmak” was created by blending the stories and poems of oppressed women from different cultures who participated in the “World Women’s Meeting” held in Nairobi in 1985. In the staging, the tradition of Meddah has been modernized. To highlight the documentary feature of the play, the play was coloured with images of war, productive women from inside and outside the book, and music. “Zilli Şıh,” a meddah story written by Haşmet Zeybek and directed and acted by Prof. Dr. Nurhan Tekerek, conceived in the eighties, has been presented to the audience since 2005. The narratives presented by male meddahs in the Ottoman period to an audience consisting solely of men were, this time, performed by an actress and shared with a heterogeneous audience. After both plays, it was concluded that the tradition of meddah, a masculine tradition, should not be approached from a sexist perspective today and that an actress can now exist in the world of theatre as a meddah. Therefore, meddah is an important source that we can benefit from today by modernising it without sexist discrimination.

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