A
play by the young writer Ugur Saatci at the AKM Nicosia
By
Heidi Trautmann
A
friend and I recently spent an enjoyable evening at one of the regular Friday
performances the State Theatre brings at the Atatürk Cultural Centre in Nicosia
(AKM). For this season they have decided on a play by a young Turkish
playwright, a play I have seen before on the occasion of the 9th
North Cyprus Theatre Festivals.
I went to see
the Trabzon Theatre with a satirical comedy Istibdat Kumpanyasi by Uğur Saatçi, a
young playwright who had won a first prize in a writing competition. The
writers guild in Turkey, I read, is complaining that there are not
enough good young writers; the young generation is interested in other things
than writing. I heard the same complaints repeated in Cyprus.
It is about
censorship executed by a government, here by Sultan Mehmed II. Abdul
Hamid (1842-1918), when in 1876 media and theatre had to be conform with the
dictation of the sultan and fear and frustration reigned in the country.
Theatre was to show the welldoings of the governing Sultan, but there was one
company, the Istibdat Kumpanyasi (The Absolutism Company), which
ridiculed the play they were supposed to bring, in a French play with the
long-nosed Cyrano de Bergerac.
Funny enough, I find, not much has changed in some
political leaders’ minds. Freedom of speech, a right we should defend.
The Cypriot Turkish State Theatre, having lost their
theatre building through fire years ago, shows their plays on the stage of the Atatürk
Cultural Centre, since a proper theatre, a public venue for art and culture,
cannot be found and established. Several attempts have been made but in vain. When will people learn that art and culture
are the basic columns society rests on.
Please read the names of the cast on the attached
copy of the programme.
Performances will continue on Fridays at 20:00 hrs.
www.tiyatro.gov.ct.tr;
ktdevlettiyatrolari@gmail.com;
Tel. 0392 228 7191 or 228 0191