Traditional oral theatre meets popular middle-class melodrama: the Greek shadow-theatre puppeteer Vasilaros

Abstract

Vasilaros (1899-1979), a moderately educated Greek shadow-theatre puppeteer, adapted popular melodramas and novels with strong bourgeois morality, such as Oι δύο λοχίοα in 1931, H άγνωστος in 1937, At δύο ορφαναί in 1944, and Οι άθλκη in 1955. The adaptations indicate that by the mid-1930s, the borderline between the traditional oral art of shadow theatre and mainstream culture had become considerably blurred. This article explores the convergence of these two cultures in terms of dramatic structure and ideology.