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Interview with Mahir Gunsiray
Sehnaz Pak, Radikal ; 5th April,
2000
- What is it that links Mahir Gunsiray
to Kafka - first in the courtroom, now on stage?
- Every writer is important. But
to me, Kafka is one of the most important writers of the 20th century.
We've been working and thinking Kafka on and off for some years now. We've
read everything there is to read on and by him. But strangely, Kafka's
world keeps escaping your grasp - that's one of the things that makes
him so attractive to me. Just when you think you've got him, he slips
out of your hand. Or else, you take one of his stories and turn it into
a play with a good beginning, middle and end - only to find out that you've
ended up with a different play!
- There are many parallels between our
group and Kafka in terms of our politics and theatre.
- We are not interested in overpowering
the audience nor in delivering messages or providing easy answers. That's
one of the reasons why none of our plays has a proper 'ending'. The end
is always dangerous, the audience expects a conclusion, an answer before
it delivers its applause. But that's not why we make theater. Any solution
you offer can easily turn into yet another "system", a kind of totalitarian
pressure on the audience to agree with you. Theatre should leave room
for the audience to wander around inside the play, enter or leave it at
will.
- The play is significantly different
from Kafka's original text...
- Our play is not a Kafka adaption
but a 'Kafka experience'. Experiencing Kafka has become a process for
us as a theatre group, almost a life style, something we found ourselves
to be part of. The play, in a way, is the sumtotal of the experiences
we had during this process. A Kafka expert might want to tell us to go
back and read our Kafka again.That's the kind of experience it is! There's
lots of Kafka material that we have imported into our world. There's the
domination and the relations between man and woman from "The Castle";
there's the former monkey from "A Report to the Academy" who has abondoned
his animal nature for the world of the humans; and of course, there's
the story of "The Penal Colony" that questions the functioning of mechanical
social systems. We've used some of Kafka's actual texts, some of his characters,
some of his thematic - and created a new play. In this sense, this is
an original play, but I believe that it is a real Kafka play. It"s more
than just an interpretation. To interpret means that you analyse a material
and adapt it, say to make it relevant to your environment. But we didn't
want to have an academic Kafka. We needed to express with and through
him, the problematic we live in our particular world.
- There are animals in training to become
human at the center of your play, why?
- It wasn't that we started off by wanting to do a 'grotesque play'. In
fact, we never have a preconceived notion of what kind of play we want
to do. There's just a concept but we let the 'kind of play' part evolve
as we work on it. In this play, the grotesqueness came naturally. By grotesque
I mean a feeling of strangeness, weirdness, funny but not easily laughable
- that's the kind of play it became. Animals can make us feel just like
that and that's why we went for it. Also, using animals allowed us to
visualise the idea of the disciplining of the body. Whatsmore, becoming
an animal is an important 'lines of escape' escape route for Kafka. There's
the world with our animal desires, sexuality, feelings, and there's the
other world that doesn't want to let you live it. The world of Kafka's
father, the world where mind reigns, the world where we are coerced into
normality, forced to be well-behaved and obliging.
- When you are talking about those kinds
of pressures, are you talking about this country?
- Yes, part of the play is about our country but when you think about
the scene where the report is delivered to the academy, you understand
that this is about Europe also. In the scene, the man says 'I have been
extraordinarily, unspeakably successful and attained the level of civilisation
of the average European'. Today, 'being European' means 'being civilised'.
Therefore, the pressure to conform is in part European or 'Western' .
The West has become the standard against which everything else is measured.
- In the play, we witness the power
struggle not just between rulers and the ruled, but between the ruled
themselves
- But yes! Aren't we always told that "this is a race, we are all in it,
the stronger you are, the better you perform, the more successful you
will be". Aren't we perpetually forced to overcome obstacles, achieve
aims and objectives, always forcing our talents to the limit? I think
we have to look at Kafka's problems with his father as a power issue.
Kafka's father wants his son to be just like him. But Kafka is not. That's
not because he intentionally choses to be different, it's because he cannot
be like him. Power has to raise the successor that will continue its rule.
For example, a male-dominated society is obliged to create a male-dominated
discourse in order to continue its rule. Men are taught how to dominate
women. And (as Olga in The Castle) women will teach other women how to
become a properly 'disciplined woman'. This is like one big machinery
of which we are all part and contribute to its functioning. There's an
impasse here. Yes, this system, this device must be broken up. I don't
know what should be put in its place. But let's first see it broken up.
If you keep thinking about what should be put in its place, aren't you
just looking for another device, another system?
Jale Karabekir , ZIP ISTANBUL
"IN THE PENAL COLONY"
(...) "In the Penal Colony" is not just a play-text, which has
been taken from other Kafka stories. It's also a performance in which
the stories are created by group's/actor's own experiences articulated
with voice and body are conveyed.
Therefore, "In the Penal Colony" has the qualification of being
an experimental play, which is rather different when comparing to the
other experimental works in Turkey. The reasons for this are selecting
texts -like Kafka's- as a basis and also offering multi-perceptional stagings
and open structures to audience. But while doing these, they don't choose
"extreme", "hard to understand", "baseless and
associationless" themes and process', and that make them successful.
"IN THE PROCESS OF SEARCHING A WAY OUT", Yesim Akyüz,
Cumhuriyet, 28th March 2000
-In the play you don't emphasize the pessimistic and heavy way of Kafka,
on the contrary your project contents colorful and comic elements. Why
did you think of approaching Kafka this way?
There's big 'cliché' stickled on Kafka; the Kafkaesque, which is an individual
lost in the wheel of bureaucracy, labyrinths, pessimism, loneliness, dead-ends,
hopelessness, 'come and go's between faith and being faithless...
And besides, we know that while Kafka was reading "the Trial"
to his friends they were all laughing together... I never consider Kafka
as the author of dead-ends. Despite, he has many ways that suit extremely
well with the situation what we are today. For Kafka, there isn't such
a thing called "freedom" supposed to be reached. As he told
in the story " A Report To An Academy" he is in the process
of searching a way out. The important thing is 'to live' and taking pleasure
and enjoyment from this process.
-In Kafka, we went after the grotesque, and the comic elements that
it contains. While I'm watching the performance, I can't keep myself from
laughing but at the same time that's a process full of pain. Besides,
the effort and the pleasure in the process of 'searching a way out', is
very important theatrical thought for us.
Because we always moved within the light of this principle in the
other projects we made. While staging "Antigone" and "The
Maids" we were under a big impression of Kafka. But these plays we
created in the process of 'searching a way out' were the things kept us
alive and helped us to represent ourselves. Another important element
in Kafka that really interests us is, not offering solutions to situations
or to events between the characters and submitting formulations. He provides
us wandering in his masterpieces. He leaves empty space to the reader.
-What are the common qualifications of the texts that you chose from
Kafka, which helped your staging?
In a way, "In the Penal Colony" is a play that we wrote. A Kafka
play, which we started our journey from his text, and step on to some
points that intersect with his world.
We chose some of the Kafka stories in the direction of the play we considered.
In our perspective, we needed to constitute an atmosphere of "disciplinizing
of the body". The novel "The Trial" wasn't matching with
this point. The relationship between Frida and K. and the assistants in
"the Castle" and the mechanical system in the story "In
the Penal Colony" was more suitable to that concept. The issue "disciplinizing
of body" and 'bodies becoming a mechanical pieces of a machine' theme
in the story "Penal Colony" was pretty parallel for us. So we
took the pieces we wanted to tell. And there are also significant parallelisms
between Kafka's and Tiyatro Oyunevi's worlds. The 'way out' issue in Kafka's
work is still effective today... "Today people are cheating each
other in the name of freedom. But it's not the high feeling of freedom
that I demand here." says the man who's presenting a report to an
academy. Because 'freedom' is always put in front of us as an abstract
concept that we must reach and we never can reach it. As we are trying
to reach further, we are not able to live 'today'. They never let us live
the present moments. As if we run to freedom, we run to death. For us,
living the performance moments and constituting a bunch of questions under
the circumstances we exist; and looking for a way out, is the main thing.
-What are the functions of animals and the man who reports to academy?
'Becoming an animal' is one of the most important aspects in Kafka. And
it's a line of escape. Looking to human's world as an animal, and feeling
that gap is parallel with Kafka's gap between the world he's looking at.
Here, in the play, animals are being pushed to a race. They compete with
each other to become a human. The man who reports to academy was an ape
at the past but today he has the artist, businessman, communication specialist,
tutor identities and presents his experiences to the animals. He is an
ex-ape and thinks he was free. One day he was hunted. Actually, he rather
accepted it of his own free will. Today he has the average culture of
an European, he got civilized. He's motivating the animals as "if
you graduate from the colony, you'll be such a good sample like me".
The ex-ape, today, is tamed and very reasonable. Now, he's in the stage
of "show off himself" and he has no more success to achieve.
This perspective has parallel points in the world we live, in Turkey.
Was the 'convict' a starting point for you in creating the animals
that are in a humanization process?
In the story "The Penal Colony" there is one convict, but the
executers of penalties are the many pieces of machine. That's a mechanism,
a system. The persons in our play (animals) actually are the dynamics
of this system.
Thus, everyone is a convict and either a component of machine. Functionally
the players differ from each other, but they are the components run the
machine. The pieces of this apparatus have to be in their top performance.
"That's a process of: optimization of skills; increasing of productivity;
parallel increasing of efficiency and docility; integration of productivity
with economical auditing systems. That's disciplinizing of body and normalization
of human." We tried to build a parallelism with the ideas of Michel
Foucault and the relations between convict(s) and the machine in "Penal
Colony".
"TAKING KAFKA TO COURT", David O'Byrne, Turkish Daily
News, 25th March 1996
'We all had to stand up in turn. To say we were guilty or not guilty.
Everyone said they were guilty, you must punish us. It was bizarre, surreal.
Everyone admitted everything. No one was sure whether to laugh or not.
When it came to my turn I stood up and I read come extracts from Kafka.'
Sitting in Cafe Marti in the Marti Art Center on Istiklal Caddesi, Mahir
Günsiray looks nervous and harassed. Jointly directing and starring in
a Turkish Language production of Brecht's "A Man is a Man" must
take a fairly heavy emotional toll. But with a fistful of good reviews
it can't that trying. And only last week he achieved the kind of publicity
that most actors and directors only dream about.
But then the news about Mahir that was picked up on by the BBC World Service
and beamed around the world that evening was about a different starring
role, and one not directly connected with the theatre. Rather the headline-grabbing
appearance was in a courtroom and the role was that of defendant in a
prosecution under Article 8 Anti terrorism Act. And his lines he quoted
directly from Franz Kafka's classic novel of unwarranted persecution,
"The Trial".
The story starts last year when world famous Turkish novelist Yasar Kemal
was arrested and charged under Article 8 of Turkey's Anti terrorism act.
Having penned an article for a German magazine decrying the situation
in the southeast of Turkey, the multiple-Nobel nominee found himself facing
a charge of promoting separatism and a potential jail sentence. Outraged
by yet another attack on free speech against yet another established Turkish
writer, a number of writers, intellectuals and another interested people,
banded together to publish a collection of articles for which the respective
writers had been prosecuted.
For Mahir Günsiray it had clearly become a matter of conscience. "It
wasn't just Yasar Kemal but others as well. For example, Münir Ceylan.
Talking about the problems in the southeast has become illegal, anyone
who dares to can be punished. We had to do something to protest against
this law."
The book titled "Freedom of Expression and Turkey" soon landed
the 1089 people who signed on as publishers in trouble. A small number
of them were arraigned on the same offences as Yasar Kemal, and much of
the embarrassment of the authorities many others turned up in the court
and
demanded to be charged as well. Their wishes granted, 98 people faced
charges at a preliminary hearing last Thursday.
"We all had to stand up in turn. To say we were guilty or not guilty.
Everyone said they were guilty, you must punish us. It was bizarre, surreal.
Everyone admitted everything. No one was sure whether to laugh or not.
When it came to my turn I stood up and I read come extracts from Kafka."
Smiling broadly and becoming more animated, Mahir struggles slightly to
translate from memory, from the Turkish edition of Kafka's "Trial".
He continues:
"Why are you so silent now? Who are you? What are you doing here?
Of course you are just obeying your orders. When you leave here you'll
go to your home and hug your wife and daughters. Do you have a conscience?
Do you know what one is?"
"The judge turned and asked me if I was addressing the court. I said:'
No, I was quoting from Kafka, they're not my lines. The court was shocked.
A few people laughed. The judge asked me again, and i replied the same
way. Then the prosecutor asked the judge to ask me why I was quoting Kafka.
The judge asked me and I invoked my right to silence. When he heard that
the prosecutor picked up a huge law book. Then people start laughing,
he was looking for a law they could charge me with. Now it looks like
they're going open a case against me."
As employee of the Istanbul State Theatre Company this could prove to
be serious, maybe even to the point of costing him his job. Although,
considering that all the plays performed by an office in Ankara that perhaps
wouldn't be so surprising.
TDN readers equipped with dictionaries may wish at this point to look
up the word "Kafkaesque", defined by the Oxford English Dictionary
as "resembling the writings of Kafka. Especially of a nightmarish
quality." A thumbnail definition of the word "ironic" may
also come in handy-"Humour pertaining to something meaning the opposite
of what is outwardly intended." In the light of which the above events
may not make sense, but can be seen perhaps in a clearer light.
Lapsing into silence, Mahir has to be prompted into some biographical
information. Brushing over his education, training and many film and TV
roles he is more interested in talking about his current production of
Brecht and an invitation to take his own play "Kaybolma" (Missing)
to the Bonn Biennial Theatre Festival in June.
The production of Brecht's "A Man is a Man", which he co-directs
with Çetin Sarikartal is, he explains, about the loss of identity and
the threat of fascism. Written in the 1930's its performance has no connection
with his current situation but does shed light on the emotional origins
of totalitarianism. "Kaybolma" or "Missing" ran for
several months in Istanbul last year at Istanbul Sanat Merkezi.
This sparse and somewhat chilling play addresses the cases of Turkish
people who "disappeared" in the events leading up to the last
military coup in 1980, and the Kafkaesque bureaucracy facing their relatives
when trying to find out what became of them- still a controversial subject
nearly twenty years on. The play's performance at the Bonn Biennial marks
something of a milestone in Mahir Günsiray's career, as it is the biggest
theatre festival in Europe and invites only new writers of promise.
Taking advantage of another silence TDN photographer tries to arrange
Mahir in front of a poster of his current production. Unable to achieve
the required pose, the look of harassment returns. Suddenly three faces
appear at the adjacent window, smiling and applauding.
Smiling again Mahir explains. "It's amazing, people keep congratulating
me." And with that he offers apologies and disappears into the theatre
to prepare for the evening's performance.
As he goes it's difficult not to think about the writers and the artists
of Eastern Europe who, after years of high-profile opposition to oppressive
regimes, found their political views marginalized and often ignored following
the overthrow of Communism. Even in England, world-renowned playwright
Harold Pinter can be sure that his plays will be routinely reviewed, and
can be just as sure that the many political cause he espouses will routinely
be ignored.
Except, of course, his recent interest in the rights of the Kurdish speaking
population of the southeast Turkey. And you can guess where that caused
a stir.
The irony seems to be that the healthier the democracy, the less attention
is paid to the views of the writers.
Mahir Günsiray graduated from the acting school in Ankara, took an M.A.
in directing at the Workshop Theatre at Leeds University in England. He
has taught acting movement, and is a member of the Istanbul State Theater,
a job possibly now under threat. His many films and TV roles include that
of the young Atatürk in a TV film called, by Kafkaesque coincidence, "Metamorphosis".
The trial of the 98 people accused of encouraging separatism continues
on 31st May. Not, as some people suspected, 1st April.
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