From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Kanuni Dönüş
This article describes a contemporary adaptation of traditional Turkish Karagöz shadow-puppet theatre. For other shadow-play and visual theatre traditions, see Traditional forms and Beach Surgery.
Kanuni Dönüş adapts traditional Turkish Karagöz shadow-puppet form to perform Leif and Katita as a contemporary cycle-play. The urban denseness of Newcastle and the desert interior become a single recursive landscape viewed through the Karagöz aesthetic of wit, irreverence, and philosophical circularity.
The work uses traditional screen and oil-lamp silhouette technique with contemporary multi-layered projection. **Katita** appears as a sharp, angular silhouette with long hair and blade-shape (the sword); **Leif** stumbles through scenes, marked by the outline of his external pacemaker rendered as a blinking light visible through the screen.
The narrative unfolds through rapid-cut scenes—the Karagöz style—mixing slapstick physicality with philosophical banter. A teahouse scene mirrors the historical Karagöz performance context itself. The Mechanic and shopkeeper become stock characters, interrupting the action with folk-wisdom commentary that contradicts the main plot.
The glitch surfaces as a moment where shadow-figures' movements blur—the dalang deliberately lose control, and silhouettes flicker in unexpected directions. Katita's blade casts multiple shadows; Leif's outline fragments. The audience realizes the screen has two-sided projection: figures approach from both directions simultaneously. The two halves of Beach Surgery are literally on opposite sides of the translucent barrier, never quite syncing.
The final scene loops: silhouettes retrace earlier journeys, dialogue repeats with subtle variation, but the ending is interrupted—the lights stay on, the cycle never concludes.