Fehim Pasha's Mansion

"Turgut Özakman's favorite subject material is the shaping of Turkish society in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire. In plays, television scripts and non-fiction works of historic investigation he has shed light on the period immediately preceding the birth of the Turkish Republic. Fehim Pasha was the right-hand man of the despotic sultan in the early years of the twentieth century. He had a stable of professional bullies who served him and his master by intimidating all dissidents, and his mansion was a hotbed of intrigue. "Fehim Pasha's Mansion" is the story of a young man, son of a former famous streetfighter in the service of the Pasha, who rebels against the "Might is right" philosophy and the decadent macho culture of the regime. In his defiance of the centuries-old order the emergence of a new humanism can be discerned. The play is not, however, didactic. Peopled by mostly comic characters, its story is told in a highly amusing and lighthearted manner."--Page 4 of cover.