By Heidi Trautmann

Why? Because there is nothing to celebrate in the Republic of Northern Cyprus. At least that is the feeling of the LBT team, the theatre and orchestra company of the Nicosia Municipality Theatre. For months they are waiting to get their wages paid. You know, my friend, professional theatre people live from what they do, it is their profession, they have learnt their profession and need to earn their living; and they do their job because they have a vision, at least I am sure they had one when they one day said, OK, this is what I want, it is my life, I’ll try to give my best for the theatre and for my country, because for them I go on stage, I choose this rather lonely job, because I believe in the importance of it.

A theatre company needs a stage, that is self-understood and it needs a theatre house with chairs for its audience, and there is a very faithful audience including myself in Nicosia, and we all know that we need a theatre, that society needs a theatre, needs art and theatre, needs music and dance and theatre.

It was Yaşar Ersoy’s and his colleagues dream to have a proper theatre one day and he started several times to be very close to the fulfillment of his dream. They have outgrown the place in Yenişehir, it has served its purpose for many years, established with the help of Mustafa Akinci former mayor of Lefkoşa, and I am sure that everybody will think back with nostalgia one day to the good time they had there; The first building they had made the plans for and with construction started, was taken away from them, all the promises were forgotten and it was given to the TED School. Now, in 2007, a new theatre project was born and the ‘relatives’ of the project, sort of taking on parentage of the project were shaking hands and promised their protection of the young building and as the shell stood in all its height, everything came to a stop and construction had not been resumed since.

Precisely here, in front of the unfinished construction of a dream, the theatre company gathered on March 20 to make a declaration to the people of North Cyprus, and fighting for the right and necessity of a theatre building, all its members stood like one body behind Yaşar Ersoy who with his thundering voice of a prophet told us about the situation they found themselves in, to us facing them, and the people at home at the TV screen…. And the windows of the municipality building at the back of which the construction site is and our meeting took place, and of all houses around shook, it had something biblical and made my hair stand on end. The essence of his apologia was: Society, democracy, education, culture are inseparably connected with theatre and the arts. He said that in ancient times a city was not regarded a city without theatre, school, sports stadium, place of worship and library. If we continue to ignore these basic necessities we have no right of  talking of humanity, decency and love for our country.

During the week of worldwide celebration of the theatre, the LBT Theatre and Orchestra Company have on each day between March 20 and 30 brought theatre plays onto their stage and stages of TV Genç and Lefkoşa Türk Lycee. On March 25 there was an exhibition in front of the Mevlevi Tekke (Museum of the Whirling Dervishes) showing theatre posters designed by our local artists. These posters represent the performances put on stage over the years and many of our artists have contributed to the colourful diversity of performances, but also the actors and actresses themselves have tried their hand in graphic design for a meaningful poster:

Hikmet Uluçam, Feridun Isıman, Aşik Mene, Ruzen Atakan, Emin Çizenel, Nilgün Güney, Uzun Anil, Salih Bayraktar, Ümit Inatcı. Özden Yetkili, Gazi Yüksel, Hatice Tezcan, Hüseyin Çakmak, Sevcan Çerkez, Kostas Kafkarides, Bengi Günay, Erol Refikoğlu, Özger Oktay, Özdemir Nutko, Bilge Bayraktar, Kemal Ankaç, Gülgün Sakallı, Ahmet Üstat, Musa Kayra, Umut Ersoy….

 On the same occasion the theatre members have literally taken the broom into their hands and have shown the people of Lefkoşa and the municipality and their workers that they care for their city, for a clean city. In my eyes it shows that the LBT Theatre is deeply involved in all the issues of society, takes up its problems and reflects them back for the people to recognize like in a mirror the good deeds and evil deeds, magnified.  

Theatre, Yaşar said, theatre is a public school and in this school people are given knowledge and education.