Read Online Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu by Lawrence Durrell - Free Book Online Page B

Plato was banned in the University of Athens—or at least expurgated). He is the spirit of the little man—but the Greek little man; he is splendid at loafing, borrowing, and playing practical jokes on his friends which have a strong profit-motive. He is a current symbol for the whole Middle East under varying forms. The comic phallus, we have already noticed, has been translated into an arm so longand so expressive as almost to satisfy the psychological theory of symbolic substitution. The fun is not by any means clean fun by puritan standards and nothing like it would be allowed on the stage in London; but is essentially pure in that it is broad and unmalicious. The list of characters which appear from time to time in the Karaghiosis mythology is quite considerable; of his own family there is first of all his wife (Karaghiozaina:). She is quite conventional, while his numberless children (Kollitiri:) supply unvarying comic relief without becoming distinguishable from the average street urchin. Karaghiosis’s uncle (Barba Giorgos:) is made of sterner stuff. A shepherd from the mountains, he wears the fabulous foustanella and speaks with the crackling dialect of Aitolia and Akarnania. His huge moustaches bristle with avarice and friendliness. Gullible at times he is usually honest and bold. His particular opposite number is Dervenagaswho is Albanian and resembles Barba Giorgos in many ways. Their meetings are usually accompanied by tremendous tussles in which Dervenagas is almost always beaten. Karaghiosis dislikes him hotly and takes every opportunity of humiliating him. The Vizier, the Aga, and the Cadi are conventionalized Turkish figures of extraordinary size; the former is the most important and is on the whole sympathetically represented.
    Hadjiavatis is the Turkish town crier and is associated with all Karaghiosis’s rascalities—in which heusually suffers instead of their author. Next in importance come Sir Gnio-Gnio and Captain Nikolis. Gnio-Gniois an idiotic, lisping imbecile in a top hat and tailcoat with a long pointed beard. He represents Zante, and speaks with the curdling sing-song accents of the island. This of course is from our point of view. It is presumed that when in Zante he represents Corcyra with a changed but still sing-song voice. Captain Nikolis is a makeweightwhose atmospheric value lies in his baggy breeches and his Aegean fez.
    And now we move from character to myth; for Alexander the Greatsurvives still in the Karaghiosis cycle of plays as a huge warrior dressed in full armor. He even kills the dragonin certain plays, and obviously owes something to St. George. Next comes Morphoniosthough exactly what he is one cannot decide. A hideous mommet with a vast lolling cranium, he speaks with a frantic affectation of voice, and dresses in conventional European clothes. He is sometimes played off against Stavrakasan extremely nasty specimen of Piraeus bravo clad in exaggerated modern dress and felt hat—which, in the course of his lengthy conversations, he is in the habit of cocking over one eye. His self-assurance is the comic vein in him, and this Karaghiosis exploits to the full.
    To bring up the tail-end of this procession one could list The Lord or The Franktailcoated representatives of European culture, as well as Abraham, Moses, Isaac, etc., an endless series of Salonika Jews, uniform in size, dress and accent. Female figures seem very unimportant in the plays, and besides Karaghiosis’s wife they include an occasional Vizier’s daughter, a princess, and a wife of Barba Giorgos.
    The puppets themselves are the result of curious workmanship; since their dimensions of operation are so limited, and since the light which illuminates them comes from behind the screen, it is necessary to do as much filigree-work as possible to enliven the bare outlines of the figures. Great ingenuity is shown in their manufacture, and the use of a kind of many-colored gelatin material enables their clothes to be