Written by Werner Schwab
Translation by Uluer Emre Ozdil
Directed by Mahir Gunsiray
Dramaturgy by Zerrin Yanikkaya-Uluer Emre Ozdil
Stage Design and Costume: Claude Leon
Music: Tolga Yenilmez
Light Design: Yuksel Aymaz
Assistant Directors: Gorkem Acaroglu, Seda Savas, Serkan Sonal
Production Assistant: Halil Kures
Light and Sound Technician Metin Celebi
Organs Design: Guclu Oztekin, Günes Terkol
Performers: Nalan Kurucim, Erkan Bektas, Ayca Damgaci, Sinan Caliskanoglu, Aynur
Tokluoglu, Hakan Milli, Banu Fotocan
It is through parody and dark humor
that Werner Schwab looks into the capitalist society in which people, alienated
in terms of identity, selfhood, and even the body, find seduction a sufficient
enough pleasure. The play borrows its heroes from Arthur Schnitzler's "The
Round Dance", only the figures pointing out various occupations, speak
Schwabish in a "speechballooninflammation" manner; play grotesque
games alongside the edges of mind and language. The playwright makes good use
of the artificial language he created as his main material. The artificiality
embedded in language brings about destruction through episodes it causes to
form. Through his gallows humor, what Schwab successfully brings to stage is
people and their relationships, which are nothing more than mere disguises engaged
in outward shows. The Tiyatro Oyunevi, performs "the seduction rondo"
between man & woman without sacrificing Schwab's own peculiar language,
blistering critique and daring belligerence in ten individual scenes, by going
round and round.
About the
production:
The play selection process
is experienced in a different manner each year for Tiyatro Oyunevi. Just think
about it, a project which you'll give at least one year of your life would both
keep you excited and alive, and teach you something; its content, staging and
performing should take you to journey you're curious about. And after everything's
accomplished, you should at least present an unforgettable performance to the
audience.
One August day, when you've just decided on a project about a Lorca play suddenly
you feel that this work could have been excellent but it would not teach you
anything.
At that moment with a sudden and a radical decision, you may choose to work
on a play of an author from an unknown world to you. This is insane. That risk
excites you. That was how Tiyatro Oyunevi decided on Werner Schwab's "The
Round of Pleasure". It was the perfect play for both its themes and language
and also for the performing study. There were some people who said "thanks,
it's enough for me" after reading the play and the ones who worked on it
for five months.
Schwab's language peculiarity constitutes a path within the meaning and staging
of the play as well: thesis and antithesis exist together. This play is about
sexuality but also it is not; it's erotic but also is not; both hurtful and
a joke; both real and artificial; penises and vaginas both exist and not; the
characters exist as flesh and blood but transformed into exchange objects, alienated
to themselves and their language, just as their organs have pushed aside, the
language they do not own had regressed from the subject.
We stand on a shop window in life just as we did our staging. Moreover, this
could be treated as a volunteered existence for most of the times. Are we driving
'ourselves with ourselves' to a kind of indecent exposure with the desire to
express ourselves? As we behave with the innocent conception that we'd benefit
from this situation, do we in fact approve self alienating life destroying us?
I've always had the opinion that the life of artists had an aspect requiring
more responsibility than the politicians.
Isn't it a pornographic situation we live in recent years, in which the artists'
life is overexposed, that they do not avoid exposing it and our curiosity towards
that?
Within such an entertainment society you either choose a role from the menu
or starve to death. As you prepare yourself according to some images, it's tragic
to be unaware or feeling desperate if you're aware; that realness is lost, slavery
and mechanization is progressing, therefore becoming objects as production means,
and transforming into a well-adjusted body of a withering world where everything
means only and only money. Everyday on televisions we ghastly see that acting
or singing arts that are means of a society to express itself are transforming
into cheap assets. Similar situation is current for the sexuality offered in
video clips and commercials. As Foucault said, sexuality is not oppressed but
it's produced positively now. Therefore production and control of sexuality
having a dangerous effect for 'power' is retained. Meanwhile it became the essential
object of 'trading'. What I feel is that we are gradually loosing what is real,
becoming slaves of technology and experiencing sense and memory lost. Let us
now forget the relation of all of these with the play; because a play does not
explain everything, it's just what you see, never more.
mahir gunsiray
Tiyatro Oyunevi would like to thank the promoting sponsor EFES PILSEN.
Tiyatro Oyunevi would like to thank the AUSTRIAN CULTURAL OFFICE.
