About the work
Paydos is a three-act comedy by the Turkish playwright and journalist Cevat Fehmi Başkut. He wrote it in 1948, and it premiered the same year at the Istanbul City Theatres. The play satirizes the social upheavals of the young Turkish republic.
Plot
The story follows Murtaza, an idealistic elementary school teacher who tries to hold on to his principles while a self-interested society reshapes the values around him. To marry the woman he loves, he gives up teaching and becomes a merchant, a decision that tests his integrity.
Cultural significance
Paydos is considered the first internationally successful production of Turkish theatre, staged roughly 65 times in Athens alone, and it was adapted for film three times (1954, 1968, 2004). It remains one of Başkut's most frequently performed plays.