Sex, Wine and Puppet Theatre

and all of it in the Anglican Church in Istanbul on a Friday night. It was a wierd introduction to one of the bizarrest constellations for a church. Down an alley from the pedestrian and more and more Oxford Street look-alike (OK, let's make that Kalverstraat) Istiklal Street, round the bend from the Kısmet (no-alcohol served!) Market and (the possibly alcohol serving) Hamburg Coffee House, we come upon a Norman looking, I say Jesus College, my cousin says Leuven-esque church. There's a crowd that makes you wonder if this church has also been converted to a night club Freud's Style, but as we cut through the crowd under let us not say hostile, but definitely perplexed gazes to pass the gates because, yes we do have tickets, we go down the stairs into a lovely garden where we are met by Quisimodo impersonators, with masks and hands outstretched for alms.

We are set in the mood for a night of soul-moving puppetry, but alas it doesn't deliver. At the portico they have set up a wine stand, understandably, to warm the audience, and we will be entering "this is my blood" territory, so all's cricket, and more so when I hear unmistakably subcontinental voices, yes, there are three, possibly Bangladeshis right by the side of the table, and when we leave the performance they are still there, with no wine left on the table, possibly having been wise enough to enjoy the early spring night in the lovely garden rather than endure the what was the worst puppet theatre production I have ever seen (though I have to say they are not that many)

Firstly, they had not quite decided whether they wanted to puppeteers to be a part of the show or not. They moved about the place as, if not more, visible than the puppets themselves and the rather unclever set design with a lot of ropes and ladders required quite a bit of getting around in order to make the puppets move. They started off with playing music and song rather than making the puppets talk, which was alright, but half way through the show the priest started to speak of sins of the flesh- that is the rather bad actor under his mask that blocked the mouth, so he was hardly audible. We were, all the while standing up at the very back groundling style, for having a ticket did not ensure a seat, as it turned out.

The most aesthetically thought out scenes were the shadow/puppet scene where Esmeralda and what's his name make love, and then the priest raping the now possibly dead Esmeralda (the puppets were so badly handled that it was difficult to make out what they were doing- there was a rather stupid scene with Quisimodo and Esmeralda doing something with ropes and chains, for the life of me, I did not understand what it was all about- most of the time was taken up with the puppeteers moving about the place anyway!) Anyway, it was an interesting moment, the audience with wine in their hands watching puppets commiting several of the deadly sins in a church. (a church, one has to point out, that is adjescent to a mosque)

As we left the church we discovered the deadliest of these sins- commercialism. The crowd as we entered had blocked the huge "Doluca Wines" poster that was put at the entrance. So this was no more than a gimmick to let the unsuspecting consumers taste the wine, the "theatre" was just your average "animation". I am still perplexed about the fathers of the church though- there seemed to be noone that would be from the congregation (does the Anglican church have a congregation in Istanbul?) and I wonder if they were aware of what they were letting in themselves in for.

Maybe this is worth starting up a correspondance with Rowan Williams for, signed a friend