"The Witches," English Touring Version

In my search to find an original Karagz play written in English to read and write about, I
realized very quickly that Karagz plays are not the types of things to be translated, especially
not to English, a non-Turkish or regional language. The history of Karagz theatre is rich and
deeply personal to the Turkish, Syrian, and Lebanon people, where the stories performed. The
theatre form, Karagz, is it self a deeply culturally attached thing; translating playscripts would
lose the complex lingual, regional, and thematic humor presented within the text. The
traditional and stories told are all or are all almost all traditional forms, and are regionally
specific, citing different lingual and nationality-related stereotypes and phrases for additional
stock characters as performed in specific regions. I did, however, come across a version of the
traditional Karagz playscript, "The Witches," written specifically to be performed in front of an
audience of American children. In order to be in keeping with the style of the original Karagz
form, the writers replaced some regionalisms in the script with American regionalisms. For
example, youll meet with disaster, is misheard by Karagz as Nebraska," and the complex
lingual relationships and regional stereotyping and humors are effectively translate to fit the
contemporary American understanding worldview, because this particular script belongs to a
tour of a Kargoz play in the United States. While Karagz and Hacivat talk about speaking in
French and Arabic, they perform only in English, because the American audience would
predominantly speak English. In Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon, re explained for the untrained or
unfamiliar ear. Karagz and Hacivat, too, are given a longer exposition, than would be standard,
in order to intriduce their character "-isms" to a fresh audience. The structure is kept to the
traditional four parts, the mukaddime, or the introductory song, sung by Karagz, the

musgavinne, or dialogue between Karagz and Hacivat, the facial or main plot, where Karagz
and Hacivat are turned into donkeys, and the Bitis, or apology to the audience, made by
Karagz, at the end. In English, the bitis looks like this,
"Go ahead, Hacivat, Puppeteers Pet. If we've made any slips of the tongue
tonight, may they all be forgiven...I'm gonna get you next time

In the tradition of what seems to be the norm for Karagz and Hacivat plays, the text and plot
are relatively short, with about half of the playing time devoted to antics between Hacivat and
Karagz. Notably, as this performance is for children, the humor in the musagivvine is limited
to a back and forth between Karagz and Hacivat to choosing their English names, decided by
Hacivat to be Waldo Wheat, and Piles oPoop, assigned to Hacivat and Karagz,
respectively. Hacivat agrees to take the latter name in order to trick Karagz into repeating
Piles oPoop, Hacivat, so that when Hacivat asks what Karagz eats, he, of course, says, Piles
oPoop, Hacivat. The antics repeat themselves with Mangy Mutt, and Hugh Featherfluff,
where Karagz is tricked into calling his own father a Mangy Mutt. The plot only loosely
follow that of the original, with the two men following the theatrical form, with the song, the
fighting, and encountering the Dandy, and a Lady, which, after antics, results in the Lady (the
witches daughter,) being turned into a donkey and treated like a donkey by Karagz, (after
making many Donkey jokes,) and then she causes the witch to turn Karagz into a donkey by
complaining about it. Hacivat, after, is also turned into a donkey, and they have to work
together to convince the witch to change them back. In the end. Hacivat blames Karagz for

the incident, and Karagz performs the bits, or apologetic conclusive line, and curtain closes, in
traditional Karagz form.
The purpose, as mentioned before, of this performance text, is to serve an educational
and entertainment purpose to a contemporary American childrens audience. With this in mind,
it is important to recognize that the choices made in this performance served to familiarize and
simplify the humor and characterization of the characters in order to be exemplify, in one
performance, what Karagz theatre is. As a result, the complexity of the lingual-regional humor
and terminology, the regional-stereotype stock characters, and the political-cultural references
are necessarily eliminated in general. As a performance, however, with the recognition that this
might be the only Karagz show seen by American audiences, it serves the characters and
comparative humor very well.