Poetic anger on the stage of the ‘ LBT’ Lefkoşa Belediye Theatre

Yaşar Ersoy lives through the poems by Faize Özdemirciler

By Heidi Trautmann

‘Rumca küstüm - Türkçe kırıldım’ that is the title of the poetry book and the title of the play created and played by Yaşar Ersoy, the grey eminence of the Turkish Cypriot Theatre.  The meaning in English: ‘In Greek I am deeply offended (not on speaking terms/no longer talk);  in Turkish I am deeply hurt(heart broken)’, the two verbs offering various shades of feelings.

The anger accumulating around the Cypriot Issue, mounts in all Cypriots’ hearts, it is in the foreground of their thoughts when they wake up and the last when they go to bed. Yaşar Ersoy is known to put the finger into the wound, shout out loud,  and raise his forefinger to shake people awake. The new play comes at the right time while the Cypriot Talks go on and on to find a solution. In his play Yaşar slips into the role of the poet in the process of creating the verses, arguing with himself and others, examining the issue.

This process of creation, the mounting anger, the sadness that overcomes the poet, the tears he weeps are accompanied by Ersen Sururi on the piano accentuating the moods the poet goes through and touching the skin of our soul; it has the quality of a musical, a sinister musical. The first scene of the play is a short film on screen, scenes collated by Hakan Çakmak, the BRT 1 TV man responsible for art and culture, as a retrospective of Cyprus’ tragic events, the basis of the poetry book. The stage set was created by Özlem Yetkili and realised by Riza Şen transporting the audience into the atmosphere of the poems acted by Yaşar Ersoy. There were even three live doves, white, on the scene, sitting on top of a house wall, often attentively listening to the words the poet - played by Yaşar - was saying, shouting, whispering, with their heads inclined.

Faize was born in 1964 in Larnaka and she works and writes for Avrupa / AFRIKA Newspaper. She has published five poetry books, including the one that is the basis of the play.

It is a very intensive play and Yaşar gives everything, soul and body, pain and irony, yes a lot of irony, so that he has decided to perform only once a week. Please call 0392 – 227 8287 for information and tickets.