By Heidi Trautmann

On the occasion of the International Theatre Day Catalköy Municipality held its 3rd Theatre Festival and its cultural director Derman Atık has again succeeded in getting some theatre companies together for ten days’ performances. There is no longer any need to introduce Derman Atık, as he is known all over the island, also for the cultural activities he is organizing in Çatalköy.  

‘There is always a way’ his motto was , I said last year, and he had to prove it this year, as Master Wind damaged the canvas of the Dedeman Tent which had to be repaired just when the Festival Programme was about to start. At least that was what I found out on the first day when I went there and stood in front of the closed gate and a deserted tent. So it started only on March 21 with the performance that was announced for the day.

I attended the play SINIR (playwright: Muzzafer Izgü) by the Çatalkoy Belediye Tiyatro SU – I like the play of words – a play directed by Derman Atık and Cenk Gürçağ, the founders of the theatre group 14 years ago. A play for two actors, a play…as if made for Cyprus.

The Dedeman Tent in Çatalköy was filled to the last seat dressed all in white as if for a marriage festivity, with the people arriving at the very last minute, but that is normal, it is not only a theatre play, it is an occasion to get together and exchange the latest gossip, wıth kids runnıng around, and you can feel the tension as if bodily present.  It makes me smile, Derman doesn’t need a special theatre building, they would make it anywhere and anyhow and I think that some of the atmosphere this tent offers would be lost in a proper building, a sort of easiness.

The play SINIR = BORDER raises the question in how far blind obedience to orders in military life may go, a question I have often seen discussed, and it raises the question in us what soldiers may go through in wars and armed conflicts.

Two soldiers performing their duty at the border in two adjacent countries somewhere on our globe, are thrown together  on the command of two generals with the border between them which with time passing becomes meaningless to them, they use it to hang their washing, they build a comradeship, later friendship across, even underneath it, they share their bread and wine until one day the command comes by the military leaders that  war has broken out and the other is from now on an enemy and has to be killed. Who wins: blind obedience or humanity? Soldier Yuan played by M.Evren Mercimekci and Soldier Mati by Mehmet Saygier, very well played, the one character a little naïve, the other always under the stress of doubt. ….Humanity wins.

Stage design was well done and light and sound directed from a control table in the back of the tent by the theatre members, simple and effective.

There were altogether six performances by – in the order of appearance – Lefkosa Sanat Tiyatrosu, Güzelyurt Sanat Dernegi Tiyatrosu, Dördüncü Duvar Kültür ve Düsünce Dernegi, Çatalköy Belediye Tiyatro Su, Güzelyurt Belediyesi Şehir Tiyatrosu and Yenierenköy Belediyesi Karpaz Esprin Tiyatrosu. There was a theatre group Limbia Paravasi Theatre to come from the South but had to be cancelled due to the repair work done on the tent.

The success of Derman Atık’s dream, to establish culture and art in his village for everybody, shows clearly how much people are interested and involved in this kind of entertainment.  Especially his endeavours to draw Cypriot theatre groups together into a sort cooperative is worth a great compliment and mention of respect.

Yaşar Ersoy, emincence grise of the theatre, the director of the Lefkoşa Belediye Tiyatrosu, had led a panel discussion on the situation of Amateur and Private Theatres in North Cyprus at the beginning of this year’s festival.