A novel by the German writer Hans Fallada on stage at
the 11th Cyprus Theatre Festival by the the ‘Sadri Alışık Theatre’
By Heidi Trautmann
On Sunday, 15 September 2013, we saw the 6th
theatre play out of 13 during the Theatre Festival organised by Nicosia
Municipality Theatre at the Atatürk Cultural Centre of the Near East University
and it was to the tunes of the old Berlin song ‘Lili Marleen’ once sung by the
famous Lale Andersen and Marlene Dietrich, that I entered the auditorium which
was full again to the last seat. It was to be ‘Little Man, What Now?’ a
novel by Hans Fallada, which was first published
in 1932, a year prior to Adolf Hitler's rise to power. The
book was an immediate success in Germany, today considered as modern classic, describing the last days of
the Weimar Republic. The playwright of the Turkish version is
Yilmaz Onay, director Bariş Erdenk.
I liked the stage décor, an old train wagon on rails
which could be pulled forward, opened partly or entirely and with slightly
varying props it could be changed into a second and/or third stage on the
stage, a sort of modular construction set.
It is a difficult play, very text intensive, to
present the living conditions of the white-collar workers of the time around
1930. It is also to show the roles of trade unions, governmental institutions,
and unemployment and the hopeless, unfriendly and competitive situation in the
labour market.
A young bookkeeper and his wife expecting a baby: the young husband keeps on losing his jobs and
the situation becomes desperate. The
acting of the main characters was very good. I noted that the silent figures continued
to take part in the development of the plot by expressive mime, movements with
hands, body and by facial expressions, which impressed me.
The story was told in separate images interrupted by
cabaret interludes with a mistress of ceremony played by the main character in
a double role. These interludes made the play rather long, distracted from the
gravity of the situation and disconnected the images of the story. This is my
opinion, however was confirmed by people sitting next to me and by friends. I believe that the figure of the newspaper
vendor and the appearance of the mistress of ceremony would have sufficed.
The story was played on many stages across Europe and
was released as several films in Germany, the first foreign release was in 1934
in the States; in 1967 another version of the film was brought out with a young
actress by the name of Jutta Hoffmann; this lady came to visit Cyprus in 2012
on the occasion of a Show of old important East-German films organised by the
Goethe Institute in Nicosia; she came to visit me in Yeşiltepe and I conducted
an interview with her which was published in Cyprus Observer in October 2012. I
am sure she would have loved to be with us for the theatre event on last
Sunday.
A little side story that goes with the theatre evening
and which made the entire audience jump out of their seats and applaud
enthusiastically for several minutes after Yaşar Ersoy, the Grey Eminence of
the Theatre had said, after he had announced the theatre event opened : “Let us
sell the riot tank and we finish building our theatre!” Bravo!
Our thanks go to the Sadri Alışık Theatre for
participating in the Cyprus Theatre Festival.
YAZAN : HANS FALLADA
OYUNLAŞTIRAN : YILMAZ ONAY
YÖNETEN : BARIŞ ERDENK
MÜZİK : CAVANŞİR GÜLİYEV
DEKOR : AYTUĞ DERELİ
KOREOGRAFİ : SİBEL ERDENK
MÜZİK EDİTÖRÜ :OZAN ÇOBAN
KOSTÜM : FUNDA
SARI
IŞIK :
CENGİZ ÖZDEMİR
OYUNCULAR :
Songül Öden,
Deniz Celiloğlu,
Gülsen Tuncer,
Metin Büktel,
Eser Karabil,
Ayhan Anıl,
Utku Demirkaya,
Yiğit Pakmen,
Arzu Kaya Hazman,
Cem Güler,
Ece Müderrisoğlu,
Elif Çakman,
Engin Demircioğlu,
Özlem Özkoşar,
Sevda Can,
Sinem Erten