From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
Turkish adaptations of Beach Surgery
This article surveys adaptations originating in Turkey and diaspora Turkish-speaking communities. For individual works, consult the entries listed below.
Turkish and Turkish-diaspora adaptations of Beach Surgery engage shadow-puppet theatre (Karagöz), experimental durational work, and site-specific installation, grounding the novel in Anatolian traditions of embodied narrative, material memory, and sacred incompleteness.
Karagöz and Shadow-Puppet Traditions
Karagöz ve Leif—Koku Sahnesi (ongoing since 2018), based in Istanbul, adapts Beach Surgery scenes as shadow-plays where character boundaries dissolve—Katita and the mechanical seagull merge into single silhouettes; Leif's three injuries become shadow-properties themselves, puppetry-language for paralysis. The title's "Koku Sahnesi" (Scent Scene) signals synaesthetic expansion: incense and herbal smoke rise from beneath the translucent screen, rendering Kármán resonance as olfactory presence [1].
Experimental and Durational Theatre
The controversial Yerevan Dome Collapse (disputed date; status unknown [citation needed]) operated as an immersive work where actors moved through a collapsing concrete structure representing the glitch as architectural failure and historical ruin. Later Turkish experimental collectives staged refusal through durational movement—actors holding silence and impossible posture for seven-hour stretches, embodying Leif's three paralyses as sacred incompleteness. Tbilisi Kármán Whisper (2021–ongoing), though Georgia-based, draws heavily on Istanbul collective methodologies.
Cinema, Installation, and Archive
Turkish experimental cinema has produced short works treating the novel as meditation on cyclical time and eternal return in post-Ottoman contexts. Installation works layer projected text, earth-sound recordings, and tactile materials (leather, red desert dust, woven cord), exhibited at regional biennial contexts; documentation remains sparse due to censorship and institutional ambivalence [citation needed].
See also
- Karagöz ve Leif—Koku Sahnesi
- Middle Eastern adaptations of Beach Surgery
- Synaesthetic adaptations
- Theatre adaptations
References
- ↑ Karagöz ve Leif archive statement, Istanbul shadow-puppet collective, 2022.