İstanbul City Theaters to host another Kurdish play next month

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After a Kurdish theater play, "Berû," was banned by İstanbul Gaziosmanpaşa Subgovernorship, the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality's (IMM) City Theaters has included another Kurdish play, "Actor" by Tiyatro Avesta group, in its November programme.

As part of a project for supporting private theater groups, Teatra Jiyana Nû (New Life Theater), which is the theater group of the Mezopotamya Cultural Center, was scheduled to perform the theater play "Bêrû" (Faceless) by Dario Fo from Italy in Gaziosmanpaşa Theater Hall of the City Theaters. However, the Sub-governor's office banned the play hours before its start time.

Three Kurdish theater groups, Şa Performans (A Report to the Academy), Şermola Performans (Disko 5 No'lu) and Tiyatro Avesta (Actor), had applied to the municipality to perform plays.

"Actor," a solo performance, is about the funny situations experienced by an actor while performing a play and is based on real-life events. It narrates all the stages of a play, from the project phase to acting, from tours to the audience with a grotesque and dark humor style.

Written, directed and staged by Aydın Orak, the play was last performed in 2014, during the 19th İstanbul Theater Festival. It will be staged at Kadıköy Haldun Taner Stage on November 26, 2020.

What happened?

After the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İMM) City Theaters made an announcement to support private theater groups amid pandemic and the TJN applied with two theater plays. "Bêrû" (Faceless) by Dario Fo from Italy was approved by the Theaters and it was planned to be staged in Gaziosmanpaşa Theater Hall of the City Theaters.

Translated into Kurdish by Dilawer Zera, directed by Nazmi Karaman and performed by Rugeş Kırıcı, Ömer Şahin, Rewşan Apaydın and Cihat Ekinci, this theater play would have marked the first Kurdish theater play to be staged in the City Theatres in their 106 years of history if it had not been banned by the sub-governor's office.

Banned by the Gaziosmanpaşa Sub-Governor's Office "because it could disturb public order," the Kurdish theater play "Bêrû" adapted from Dario Fo's work has been staged in Kurdish for over 100 times since 2017.

While it was staged in Turkish by the Turkey's State Theaters, it was previously staged in Kurdish with the same content in a series of provinces such as İstanbul, İzmir, Diyarbakır, Adana, Ankara and Batman. (FD/VK)