Tour in Lebanon

 I just came, with Rebecca Simpson, from a long tour in Lebanon that has led me to many different cities and towns across the country. The tour was organized by the El Khayal, who heads Karim Dakroub. The performances began in Beirut at the Theatre Tournesol. Then I was in Raifoun, at the same house where The Maronite Patriarch Sfeir was born. The next day was the turn to be in Btekhnay performing in a Druze community center. Then, I performed in Tibnine, Tripoli, Jounieh, again in Beirut, Zahlé and Jbaa. The last day we went to the south to perform in Sawani, where we played in a session organized by UNIFIL.

I attache here the video shot in Rayak Station, at the Bekaa Valley, a veritable graveyard of trains that shows the station as it was when his services were interrupted in 1976 by the war.

The interested can find more information about the station in my article posted on my spanish blog Rutas de Polichinela. You can also see the website of Elias Boutros Maalouf and his proposal to convert the station into a museum.

The Istambul Puppet Festival

Routes of Pulcinella took me, from Granada directly to Istanbul. I had been invited to the Puppet Festival, directed by my friend, the actor and Karagöz shadow player Cengiz Ozek. I stayed in Istanbul from 9th until 19th May.

The Puppet Center of Cengız Ozek

I know this city very well, which I had visited with some regularity since my first time here in 1973, when old Constantinople still showed its traditional features, elegant and decadent, with their old taxis like boats cruising the streets full of noisy traffic, but slow and more or less passable. I remember the ship Akdeniz, one of the two boats that made the Barcelona-Istanbul route in six days, with stops in Marseilles, Genoa, Naples and Athens; the Karadeniz did the same but instead of Athens, stopped at Alexandria. Istambul, with bustling streets full of people and an array of porters, water-sellers and vendors of other extraordinary goods which made a deep impression on me. The Galata Bridge was still made of wood; it burned down and was later replaced by another, cement bridge. And since that first trip I have made some friendships that have lasted until today.

Later I met Cengiz Ozek, who opened the doors for me to the Turkish Karagöz shadow theatre, of which Cengiz is an acknowledged master. Committed to promoting the art of puppetry, Cengiz organizes this festival year after year which has earned international fame and recognition. This year, it involved some twenty companies and more than sixty performances in different theatres and neighborhoods in the city.

Cengız Ozek

As for  my project of Routes of Pulcinella and the relationship between cities and puppets, I want to relate Istambul to the character of Karagöz and to the shadow that bears his name. A character who despite not belonging to the lineage of Pulcinella technique or glove puppet, bears some similarities to him and his Neapolitan dramatic spirit: burlesque attitude, self-confidence in speaking, social criticism, use of surreal nonsense , etc.

On 11^th May  I did two performances at the Pera Museum and later, on 16^th May 2011, I gave a lecture at the Department of Theatre Arts at the Sahne Dekorian University, about the relationship between puppets and cities and the proposed book, Routes of Pulcinella.

Here are two videos on Ozek Cengiz Karagöz.