Antigone

Sofokles

Photos From the Play

Translated by: Gungor Dilmen

Music by: Turgay Erdener

Directed by: Mahir Gunsiray

Dramaturgy by: Cetin Sarikartal

Stage Design by: Claude Leon, Selim Birsel

Lighting Design by :Yuksel Aymaz

Technical Major Staff :Ersin Kizilkaya

Music Director: Bogachan Sozmen

Dance Director: Dikmen Seymen

Actors: Ayse Lebriz, Ece Eroglu, Dikmen Seymen, Tumay Nazik, Evren Yazici, Alev Cinbarci, Ayse Selen.

Cello: Banu Akgun

Premier: 27.02.1998

Our opinions

• Can we talk about a pure reason or a pure desire?
• Is it really necessary to be a man, if it's a must to act like "man" when playing the role of a man?
• Does it restrain the desire of playing, if the ones who want to play have to play a certain play?
• Esrimek...Sinira kadar.
• Being mannery? Being unmannery?
• Who can stop these women?
• To be dangerous?
• Is there another way for a woman except living in a world in which the signs of man are dominant?
• The one who does not adapt to the system can only be a creature.
• Director: I give the power to the players but keep the authority.
• The disciplinization, normalization and isolation of the body in a hygienic place by the society. To stand against these by playing.
• Erkek dedigin boyle olunur!
• The desire without a cause or an aim.
• Soiling and infection are inevitable. There is no hygienic place.
• Are the women will be "women" if this system is vanished?
• More effeminate, more erotic.
• The one who finds something to play is freed from the text.
• The desire is bigger, the violence used to press it will be bigger.
• Can a text be the reason of the desire to play?
• Bursting out the enormous desire- which we in fact scare to death to reveal it in our "normal" lives- on the body of the player at the secure milieu of the stage.
• It's easy to have great adventures or tragedies if you're rich and noble, what if you're only a guard?
• Why do you want to play Antigone?
• How many plays does this play contain?
• Do the women are forced to live with the codes of men?
• The desire of acting must burn the player like a fire, the case of can not acting must give her/him great pain.
• Who knows that he is not hiding his fear from his great passion to the women while he's insulting women and seeing them as fields to be seeded?
• -"It's grievous that you lost your grandmom."- "No, I'm OK. The try of survival of a young woman is more grievous than the death of an old woman.
• The stage is a place burning in flames.
• Inebriety helps you to forget all the fears.
• He/ she tries to be reasonable because he/ she frightens that the desire inself may exit.
• To give importance to all kinds of individuality.
• The place of paranoia. The call to be associated against in and out enemies.
• The enthusiasm in the Bacchaen choruses is at the border of danger.
• Invent a game to exist on the stage.
• Don't tell me "it's forbidden" please!
• How much can we approach to the reality?
• I control myself. I have to get out of here. Now I'm getting out. That's the orifice!
• What's the difference of women players?
• Antigone is like a recall to the chaos.
• Going to a way with no return. Why?
• There's an erotic relation on the stage between the players.
• He/ his self - Body - Will - Arrogance - Solitary
• I'm troubled in soul. It's dire to yield; but by resistance, to smite my pride whith ruin this, too is a dire choice.
• What do "captive bodies" mean? Whose body is captived? How and why?
• In this play I discovered a vivid woman in myself and the enthusiasm of playing. Can it be oppressed anymore?
• To cross the frontiers of a world which could be estimated an permitted to live in, by using primitiveness and animalization.
• Whose position is more tragic, women or men?
• Do you know it's how tragic to understand that one is living with the codes of the other sex and unconscious of self desires?
• A moderate, modest woman who knows her limits.

Staged at

• Stage Fox, Istanbul (1998)
• Yunus Emre Culture Center, Bakirkoy, Istanbul (April 1998)
• Turkish - American Culture Center, Izmir ( May 1998 )
• 3rd Ankara Theatre Festival ( 24 November 1998)
• Robert College, Istanbul (9.3.1999)
• Kadikoy Cagdas Kultur Merkezi (10-14 March 1999)
• Istanbul State Theatre Aziz Nesin Sahnesi (14-16 May 1999)

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  Critics

  A brave interference " Antigone"
  "Antigone rebels against the power (Kreon) since Sophocles wrote it.2500 years of rebellion will live as the literature and theatre live."...
  "But the title of this article " A Brave interference" is not about Antigone (everyone knows her interference), it's about the activity of Tiyatro Oyunevi."...
  "It's a very right choice to play Antigone, nowadays in our country in which high treason and patriotism are mixed and the places of crime and punishment are very often changed with each other."...
  "Most remarkable choice of Mahir Guniray is letting woman players to play all the roles."...
  "When you throw all your prejudices and suppositions away, leave yourself free as much as you can and then watch the play, there exists such a taste of "playing" to which you might want to join."...
  "These 8 women are very different from the women chorus of classical tragedies."...
  "They desire to amuse, overflow but mostly to live as they want. They leave these desires free. They're aware of their bodies and "woman being"."
  Zeynep Oral Milliyet, 23 March 1998
  
  
  Antigone
  "I want to share the things made in Turkey with you. Watching "Antigone" was an experience of journalism for me."..."I'm sure that, when it's said that it's a must to catch Spain for us, my colleagues who are with President Demirel in Spain questioned; "Only catching in GNP (Gross National Product) is not enough, can we catch them in art?" They must make the same questionnaire when they return to here. If we don't question, it's impossible to notice what's existent."..."Antigone? It's a problem to find the location of "Stage Fox" in Bomonti. You have to park your car at the street! It necessitates an effort.
  But, this little effort can give you a big award. It lets us to hope that we may really catch Spain."..."The only thing they can do is to surprise us- like they amazed me- They succeed it.And the only thing I can do is to announce it to you."
  Murat Birsel, Yeniyuzyil