Simon Stephens beyond Europe: Pornography on the Turkish Stage

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The productions of Stephens’s plays (e.g. Pornography, 2009; Punk Rock, 2010 by Dot in Instanbul) have contributed to the growing interest of emergent independent theatre companies (e.g. Kumbaraci50, Ikinci kat, Domus Sanat Ciftliği) in new models of writing for theatre and theatre-making that question and undermine the established tradition of naturalist theatre and the dominance of the playwright as untouchable artist.

2. Hasibe Kalkan Kocabay, ‘Tiyatroda Yeni Arayişlar’ <http://www.journals.istanbul.edu.tr/iutiyatro/article/viewFile/1023016201/1023015372> [accessed 4 July 2015], p. 3. All the translations from Turkish documents here and throughout this article are my own.

3. Ibid. Some theatre companies established in this period are: Kumpanya, Stüdyo Oyuncuları, Bilsak, Oyunevi whose works engage with postmodern and postdramatic forms.

4. Patrice Pavis, ‘Introduction: Towards a Theory of Interculturalism in Theatre?’, in The Intercultural Performance Reader, ed. by Patrice Pavis (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 1–27 (p. 16).

5. Patrice Pavis, Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, trans. by Loren Kruger (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 4.

6. Ibid., p. 5.

7. Jacqueline Lo and Helen Gilbert, ‘Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis’, TDR: The Drama Review, 46.3 (2002), 31–53 (p. 42).

8. Pavis, Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, p. 5.

9. Lo and Gilbert, ‘Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis’, p. 41.

10. This was a co-production between the Deutsches Schauspielhaus (Hamburg) and the Festival Theaterformen at the Schauspielhannover, 2007. Directed by Sebastian Nübling.

11. The British premiere was a co-production between The Traverse Theatre and Birmingham Repertory Theatre (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, 2008). Directed by Sean Holmes.

12. Suat Karantay, ‘Türkiye’de Oyun Çevirisi Tarihine Kisa bir Bakiş’, Metis Çeviri, 9 (1989), 87–91 (pp. 87–88).

13. See Pürnür Uçar Özbirinci, ‘Intercultural Theatre? A Streetcar Named Desire on the Turkish Stage’, Theatre Research International, 33.1 (2008), 70–83. In 1988 the Turkish State Theatre decided to stage 60 per cent Turkish and 40 per cent foreign plays each season to provide Turkish audiences with new perspectives on other cultures, predominantly western cultures.

14. See Karantay, p. 88. Also, see the online archive of the Turkish State Theatre which provides some information on the previous productions.

15. President Erdogan has been censoring free speech by ceasing state funding for theatres and threatening to privatise theatres to control what gets staged. See ‘Turkish Prime Minister’s Bid to Privatize Theatres Stirs Uproar’, Hurriyet Daily News, 30 April 2012 <http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-prime-ministers-bid-to-privatize-theaters-stirs-uproar.aspx?pageID=238&nID=19577&NewsCatID=384> [accessed 4 July 2015].

16. Banu Karaca, ‘Images Circulated, Delegitimized and Discouraged: Explicitly Political Art and the Arbitrariness of the Unspeakable’, New Perspectives on Turkey, 45(2011), 155–183. See <http://research.sabanciuniv.edu/18831/1/NPT-45_Karaca.pdf> [accessed 4 July 2015].

17. I conducted two interviews with Murat Daltaban, the Artistic Director of Dot and director of Pornography. The first interview (6 January 2011) will be referred to as ‘Interview I’, and the second one (30 March 2014) as ‘Interview II’. The quotation here is from ‘Interview II’.

18. Theatre Uncut’s first international collaboration was realised with Dot theatre. Theatre Uncut Turkey was premiered at the Istanbul International Festival May 2014 and at the Edinburgh Festival August 2014.

19. Daltaban, ‘Interview I’.

20. Simon Stephens qtd. in Lyn Gardner, ‘The Finger-Pointer’, Guardian, 4 August 2008 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/aug/04/edinburghfestival.festivals> [accessed 4 July 2014].

21. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003), p. 62.

22. Jacqueline Bolton, ‘Playwrights and Plays: Simon Stephens’, in Modern British Playwriting: 2000–2009: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations, ed. by Dan Rebellato (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013), pp. 101–24 (p. 103).

23. Hans-Thies Lehmann, Postdramatic Theatre, trans. by Karen-Jürs Munby (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 100. [Originally published in German in 1999.]

24. Ibid., p. 3.

25. Markus Wessendorf, ‘The Postdramatic Theatre of Richard Maxwell’, 2003 <www2.hawaii.edu/~wessendo/Maxwell.htm> [accessed 12 May 2014].

26. Maik Hamburger, ‘Theatertreffen in Berlin, May 2008’, Contemporary Theatre Review, 18.4 (2008), 531–44 (p. 541).

27. Daltaban, ‘Interview II’.

28. Robert Schild, ‘Quo vadis, “In-Yer-Face”? “Suratina Tiyatro” Nereye Kosuyor…?’, Tiyatro…Tiyatro Dergisi (March 2010). The article in Turkish can be accessed at: <www.tiyatroelestirmenleribirligi.org/elestiri-yazilari/150-suratina-tiyatro> [accessed 4 July 2015]. All translations from the Turkish are mine.

29. See Mehveş Evin, ‘Pornografi’den Kürtçe Oyuna’, 15 February 2010 <http://cadde.milliyet.com.tr/2010/02/16/YazarDetay/1199469/-pornografi-den-kurtce-oyuna> [accessed 4 July 2015].

30. Pavis, ‘Introduction: Towards a Theory of Interculturalism in Theatre?’, p. 12.

31. Pavis, Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, p. 6.

32. See ‘Victims of the Bombings’, BBC News, n.d. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/london_blasts/victims/default.stm> [accessed 17 April 2015].

33. Daltaban, ‘Interview I’.

34. Ibid.

35. Pavis, Theatre at the Crossroads of Culture, p. 4.

36. Ibid.

37. Lo and Gilbert, ‘Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis’, p. 43.

38. Ibid.

39. Loren Kruger qtd. in Pavis, Theatre at the Crossroads, p. 133.

40. See Daryl Chin, ‘Interculturalism, Postmodernism, Pluralism’, in Interculturalism and Performance: Writings from PAJ, ed. by Bonnie Marranca and Gautam Dasgupta (New York: PAJ Publications, 1991), pp. 83–98 (p. 94).

41. Una Chaudhuri, ‘The Future of the Hyphen: Interculturalism, Textuality and the Difference within’, in Interculturalism and Performance, ed. by Marranca and Dasgupta, pp. 192–207 (p. 193).

42. Lo and Gilbert, ‘Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis’, p. 42.

43. Simon Stephens, ‘Skydiving Blindfolded, or Five Things I Learned from Sebastian Nübling’ given at the opening of Stückemarkt 2011 at Haus der Berliner Festspiele. The article can be accessed at: <http://www.nachtkritik.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5616:skydiving-blindfolded-impulsreferat-des-britischen-dramatikers-simon-stephens-zur-eroeffnung-des-stueckemarkts-beim-theatertreffen-2011&catid=101&Itemid=84> [accessed 4 July 2015].

44. Ibid.

45. See, for example, Andrew Haydon’s blog Postcards from the Gods <http://postcardsgods.blogspot.co.uk> [accessed 27 April 2015]. Particularly: ‘The Mid-North Sea Sensibility’, 11 May 2011 <http://postcardsgods.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/mid-north-sea-sensibility.html> and his post on Guardian Theatre blog: ‘European Theatre Is Still Foreign to Us’, 14 May 2014 <http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2014/may/14/uk-theatre-european-plays-in-translation> [both accessed 4 July 2015], and Simon Stephens’s Guardian Theatre blog post: ‘Deutsch Courage: Why German Theatre Dares – and Wins <http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2012/may/09/german-theatre-dares-three-kingdoms> [accessed 4 July 2015].

46. Chris Wilkinson, ‘Noises Off: April Fools Article’, Postcards from the Gods, 6 April 2009. This piece was printed in the 1 April edition of Noises Off, and posted on Andrew Haydon’s blog <http://postcardsgods.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/noises-off-april-fools-article.html> [accessed 4 July 2015].

47. Daltaban, ‘Interview II’.

48. See ‘New Writing Workshops with the Royal Court’, British Council <http://www.britishcouncil.org.tr/en/programmes/arts/royal-court> [accessed 5 July 2015].

49. Lo and Gilbert, ‘Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis’, p. 44.