Credits
Premiere: 6 November 2010 (Mekan Artı - Elmadağ - Istanbul)
Text/Direction/Concept: Ufuk Tan Altunkaya
Project Assistant: Hande Eker
Sound Design: Zeki Elveriş
Music: Aydın Çıracıoğlu, Ali Yağız Şen, Melike Şahin
Performed by: Berrin Karabaş, Candaş Çetinkaya, Melis Avçil, Murat Baykan
About
‘’Everyone knows there are roots that belong to them somewhere and everyone would like to know where they belong to…’’
The burden of the history is heavy, it’s easier to put responsibility on someone else… It is just a matter of listening, without pitying, crying, talking; is it dangerous to be melt into ‘’the other’’ and disappear, or is it ridiculous and laughable to talk about these more? Should the Turkish-Greek exchange in 1923 be a part of our visual icon and should we have it framed and hang it on the loveliest wall of the past? Or should we throw out the garbage composed of this story and others like this one? People want to know their real color, but the other colors are lovely as well…
The fiction of the “The Root” was created by using documentary theater elements and by benefiting from contemporary staging techniques. Being based on the real-life stories of the exchanged people, the recent history was pursued in the text. Ufuk Tan Altunkaya, the writer and director of the play, said: ‘’We know very little about our recent history as a society. The exchange is a dishonor of our recent history, performed in the name of nationalisation. “The root” is a small step taken to confront our recent history and make this incident unforgettable, which was painful for people of both nations’’. Altunkaya has focused on body language and use of the body on stage in this play, as he has done in his other works.
By taking the audience back to the forgotten moments of history through the singing of Turkish and Rembetiko songs with live music, the audience becomes a part of the lifes of characters. Being a friendship symbol that has came through until today and combining these two cultures, music is presented with the live performance of Aydın Çıraoğlu on accordion, Ali Yağız Şen on guitar, and Melike Şahin on vocal. A musical feast is presented to the audience through the folk songs, which are the common heritage of Turkish and Greek culture.