Sunay Akin One-Man Show

Friday, May 6, 2005
8:00 pm

Katie Murphy Amphitheatre
Building D
Fashion Institute of Technology
Seventh Avenue at 27th Street
New York, NY 10001

Tickets: $15

For tickets please click the BUY button or call (212) 229-1207.

The meddah works alone. He is the sole actor in a play that includes many characters. In an age when listening was much more popular than reading, and in a time where there was no radio, television, or cinema, performances by meddahs would take place throughout the Ottoman Empire, in city squares on Ramadan nights, smoky coffee houses, and at jubilant circumcision feasts. Meddahlik is the predecessor of the stand-up show of today and is traditionally narrated by a seated storyteller. Stories can range from events from daily life to folk tales, epics, and legends.

Sunay Akin identifies himself as a follower of the meddah tradition and describes his stand-up show, which is accompanied by photographic slide images, as “a series of mysterious and astounding scenes” such as a poet fleeing from World War II with his bicycle, an unsinkable ship at Pearl Harbor, and an American Indian’s poetic chronicle. Akin takes an ancient art form and enchants audiences with his musings and stories in the old-fashioned way: through the power of the imagination.