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.