Joe Penhall’un Aşk ve Anlayış adlı oyununda modern hilebaz karakter

Çağdaş İngiliz-Avusturalyalı oyun yazarı ve senarist Joe Penhall’un oyunu Aşk ve Anlayış (2004), modern dünyanın karmaşasını ve yoğun iş hayatı ve iletişimsizlik yüzünden sevgili olan iki genç doktor Neal ve Rachel’in ayrılığını resmetmektedir. Oyun ayrıca manipulatif, narsist, çıkarcı ve düzenbaz karakter ile hilebaza benzeyen yalnız ve depresif Richie karakterini bize tanıtmaktadır. Hilebaz karakter, edebiyatta ve kültürde farklı kimliklerle ve farklı kılıklarla ortaya çıkan arketip bir karakterdir ve eğlenceli, haylaz ve akıllı bir kişiliğe bürünmüştür; dahası hilebaz karakter hayatta kalmayı ve her koşulu kendi çıkarına kullanmayı başarmaktadır. Mitolojide, edebiyatta ve halk hikâyelerinde Dionysus, Pan, Prometheus ve Nasrettin Hoca ve beyaz perdede Jack Sparrow, Joker ve Maske gibi birçok tanınmış şahsiyet; belirli ölçüdeki kurnazlıkları, hilekârlıkları ve muziplikleri ile hilebaz karakter için örnek olarak gösterilebilmektedir. Bu makalede inceleneceği üzere, Penhall’un oyununda Richie’yi, ahlak dışı kurnazlığı, hedonizmi, sığlığı ve acınası yalnızlığı ile hilebaz karakterin modern versiyonu olarak okumak mümkündür.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Joe Penhall, Aşk ve Anlayış, Modern dünya, Hilebaz Karakter

Modern Trickster in Joe Penhall’s Love and Understanding

Contemporary English-Australian playwright and screenwriter Joe Penhall’s play Love and Understanding (2004) depicts the chaos of modern world and the disintegration of the two young doctors Neal and Rachel as lovers because of their busy works and miscommunication. This play also introduces us the lonely and depressive Richie who resembles ‘trickster’ with his manipulative, narcistic, self-seeking, tricky character. Trickster as a character in literature and culture is an archetypical figure who mostly appears in many different identities and disguises and adorns with amusing, mischievous and clever personality; moreover, trickster achieves to survive and to arrange all the affairs for his/her own hand. Many well-known personalities such as Dionysus, Pan, Prometheus and Nasreddin Hodja in mythology, literature or folk tales, and Jack Sparrow, The Joker or The Mask in movies can be cited as examples for trickster being cunning, cheater and rogue to some degree. As it will be analysed in this essay, in Penhall’s play, Richie can be read as the modern version of trickster with his decadent slyness, hedonism, shallowness and piteous loneliness.

Keywords:

Joe Penhall, Love and Understanding, Modern world, Trickster,

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