FringeNYC 2013: Bellini and the Sultan: A Comedy in Istanbul

Review by Heather Lee Rogers · August 13, 2013

Bellini and the Sultan, written and directed by Ed Stevens, is being produced by Turkish American Repertory Theater and Entertainment (TARTE) whose mission includes sharing Turkish culture and literature with American audiences.  The premise of Bellini and the Sultan is that Bellini, the self-proclaimed most talented painter in Venice, is sent by his Doje to Istanbul because Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire would like his portrait painted.

  It is billed as a comedy and it sounded interesting.  The play opened with the actors all pulling costume pieces out of a trunk in a fun, choreographed movement piece that became a brief dance number.  Then the entertaining segment of the show ended and they started speaking.

The improbable complications of the plot pile up at a rapid pace.  First Bellini learns that Muslim law forbids paintings of people as a form of idolatry and for this offense the Sultan’s advisor wants the painter killed.  The Sultan’s advisor is also trying to poison the Sultan.  The Sultan’s 54th lesser concubine is actually his own daughter and in love with a soldier. The soldier needs Bellini’s coaching to know what to say to a lady.  The concubine and the soldier could both be killed for their treasonous love.  There is another Italian in Istanbul as a spy who tells Bellini that he is really here to get information from the Sultan about warships and not to paint at all. Even though the situation is supposed to be increasingly dangerous for Bellini, every character in the play is taken into his confidence instantly and hears all about these various intrigues. 

Within all this, Bellini is admitted to multiple private audiences to paint the famously fierce-tempered Sultan.  While they are together Bellini immediately and quite constantly challenges the Sultan’s beliefs, decisions and governmental policies.  The Sultan rages a little but nothing ever happens.  We are given to believe that since everybody else fears him, he enjoys the foreigner’s honesty.  But it just gets too unbelievable that Bellini is allowed these liberties. 

It’s easy to see what Stevens and TARTE are trying to do.  In nearly every scene between the Sultan and Bellini it is blatantly remarked that the two of them, from their very different cultures, are learning great amounts from each other.  I would have liked to have seen more script development towards what exactly they were learning.  I heard the Sultan tell Bellini that his culture was advanced in architecture and astronomy.  This much I remembered from school, but it would have been wonderful to have learned new things about the Ottoman Empire (and 15th century Venice for that matter).  Also for a play produced to promote Turkish culture, it’s odd that the protagonist is the Venetian guy whose experience in Istanbul is that everyone around him is completely crazy.  The play is supposed to be a comedy and it’s certainly okay to poke fun at one’s own culture.  But it seems like a lost opportunity that the Turkish characters are all portrayed as emotionally rash and two-dimensional, repeatedly supporting Bellini’s perception. The concubine is a spoiled princess and threatens death to both herself and others when she can’t have her way.  The Sultan orders death to a spy via serpent-swallowing on an impulse. The Sultan’s advisor couldn’t be a more stereotypically evil and conniving villain.  Not even the Sultan himself is particularly fleshed out.

Broad stokes and far-fetched situations are used all the time in comedy.  But they only succeed in producing laughs when the stakes are high and the actors make us believe in them. Otherwise stock characters and circumstances we can’t buy create predictable theater that becomes more tedious than funny.