Hikaye-i Don Kisot

Miguel de Cervantes

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Photos From the Play
Photos From the Play



Translated by: Roza Hakmen

Adapted by : Mahir Gunsiray, Cetin Sarikartal

Directed by: Mahir Gunsiray

Dramaturgy: Cetin Sarikartal

Stage design: Claude Leon

Costume design: Refika Tarcan

Music director: Bogachan Sozmen

Lighting design: Yuksel Aymaz

Technical major staff: Ersin Kizilkaya, Erkan Kalkan

Players: Mahir Gunsiray, Bogachan Sozmen, Evren Yazici, Tumay Nazik, Ece Eroglu, Dikmen Seymen, Ayca Damgaci, Banu Akgun

From The Brochure

The materials needed for the project of a touring "theatre in the tent" which will visit 25 cities of Anatolia until the year 2000: an aliminium constructed circus tent with a diameter of 28 meters, two trucks and a generator... Technical staff and the players are ready.It's possible to stay a week in every visited city. Announcements can be like this: " Dear citizens, your mobile culture center is at the town. Your theatre at the tent is getting started.Hurry up! Today "The tale of Don Quixote"! The tickets are put up for sale!

D.Q- Friend Sancho, we're at the heart of adventure. Know that, by will of heaven, I was born in this age of iron, to revive in it that of golden. I am here for whom danger, great exploits and valorous achievements are reserved.

S.P.- But my dear sir, even if you succeeded the most dangerous adventures here, nobody sees or hears. So your exploits will sleep in dark until the end of the world. That's a great unjust to your aim and the reply you deserve.

D.Q.- You speak well but nonsense Sancho! I see that you didn't get the essence of our subject. This is a very long and a troublesome road. To be recognized, first you have to gain little successes.

Are there some places in which a living being can present him/herself to another, directly with his/her body, sweat, smell and spittles by getting rid of all armours?

D.Q.- That's the proof of being a knight-errant or a lover are no different.Both of them are exercised with desire and the hazard of death is always near.

The performer is a pedlar.He/she can fall when she stops.The performer is nomad.Settling, inhabiting can be fatal.

D.Q.- What are you talking about Sancho? What's the relation between the subject we're on and your drivels? Know that, I have an intention to perform an exploit whereby I shall acquire perpetual fame and renown over the face of the whole earth

S.P.- And is this exploit a very dangerous one?

If only we could see the performer's own at every moment of the story-telling and he/she could tell us that " I'm here, at the moment, presenting you a story I love to perform with my body.

D.Q.- I design to act here the desperate, raving and furious lover; at the same time following the example of the valiant Don Orlando with respect to Angelica the fair; he ran mad, tore up trees by the roots, disturbed the waters of crystal springs, slew shepherds, destroyed flocks, fired cottages and an hundred thousand of other things worthy of eternal record.

Theatre? Is it really necessary to bear such a troublesome love? Are we mature enough to continue a relation without waiting for a reply? Until what? Why? What's the reason of playing?

D.Q.-There lies the point. And in this consists the refinement of my plan. A knight-errant who runs mad with just cause deserves no thanks; but to do so without, this is the point; giving my lady to understand how much more I should perfom were there a good reason on her part.

Still insisting on theatre in this age? Oh god!

D.Q.- Sancho you're the foolest squire on earth. Didn't you recognize that everything belonging to knight-errantry seems foolish and mad, but not that way in reality? That's because there are some magicians wandering among us. Thus, the thing seems as a basin to you and a golden helmet to me.It can be seemed as anything to anybody.

The stage is dangerous.The performer who is in a place in flames must act according to this.

D.Q.- I would have thee know, that all these actions of mine are no mockery, but done very much in earnest. And you have to leave bandages for my injuries.

Is theatre a reflection of reality? What if it's more than that?

D.Q.- Thinkest thou that all the women in the books, ballads and stage-plays were really ladies of flesh and blood and beloved by those who have celebrated them? Certainly not: they're mostly feigned,to supply subjects for verse, and to make the authors pass for men of gallantry.It's therefore sufficient that I think and believe that she's beautiful and modest and I regard her as the greatest princess in the world.

If only everybody could have the power of representing his/herself.

D.Q.- Friend Sancho know that I was born in this age of iron to revive in it that of golden I'm destined to obliterate the memory of all the famous knights-errant of times past.

Audience is important. Audience is not important. Audience is important. Audience is..

D.Q.- Which age are you living at? What are you talking about? You should know that our road is an artistic one.And you can't find money on it. At least for the present.Maybe you gain from extra jobs but you'll have no time for it in our adventure. To be a volunteer is being expected. The principles, discipline are important.

We're on the road. There's no return.

D.Q.- Peace, coward and bind me fast! You're going, the steel hearted, bronze armed wrestler. Lord will help you to return to the light of life you left, for following the darkness.

Will we again have difficulties to find the end of the play?

..- You Signor Addlepate! Who has put it into your head that you're a knight-errant? Go,go get your home again, look after your children, if you have any, and what honest business you have to do. And leave wandering about the world and making yourself a laughing-stock to everybody.

D.Q- This place, the presence of these noble persons and the respect I have always had for my function, check my just resentment and tie up my hands from taking the satisfaction of a gentleman.
I should rather have expected sober admonitions from you, than infamous reproaches. For mere scholars, that never trode the path of chivalry, to think me mad, I despise and laugh at it. I'm a knight, and a knight will I die.I, for my own part, follow the narrow track of knight-errantry; and for the exercise of it I despice riches, but not honour. I'm in love, but no more than the proffession of knight-errantry obliges me to be.

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