Theatre

The newspapers drifting along the Kingsland Road may be Turkish, along with a bank, various travel agents, and numerous kebab shops (including, of course, the revered Mangal restaurant), but Mehmet Ergen, artistic director of the Arcola Theatre nearby, has never focused solely on a Turkish audience in spite of coming from Turkey himself. ‘There’s something very predictable about that,’ says the irrepressible director. ‘You go to one particular theatre to see lesbian plays, and another to see Irish or black theatre. We made sure we didn’t do that. Also, there were no great new plays by writers from a Turkish background.’

Instead, the Arcola has pursued its own adventurous and eclectic policy with great success. But after seven years, Ergen is finally dipping his toe into the Marmara Sea with a season of Turkish plays and plays about Turkey, as well as films, readings, exhibitions, debates and parties. Called the Orient Express season, it is designed to appeal both to the Arcola’s loyal audience and to encourage the local Turkish residents to drop in lured initially by a trio of Turkish divas.
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Two plays will dominate the season: ‘Silver Birch House’ by the Arcola’s executive producer, Leyla Nazli, and ‘Pera Palas’ by the US-based Turkish writer Sinan H Unel. The latter was previously seen at The Gate in 2000. Both explore Turkey’s sometimes bloody history. The country’s precarious position, straddled between East and West, and its endless negotiations with the EU mean that it is often in the news, most recently over the proposed election of a new president which has provoked violent dissent from those who disapprove of the prime minister’s choice of Abdullah Gul as the governing AK party’s candidate.

‘Pera Palas’ – the name refers to a hotel especially built for travellers on the Orient Express – explores three defining moments in Turkish history, while ‘Silver Birch’ focuses on life in the late ’70s and early ’80s in the mountains in eastern Turkey. It’s where Nazli herself came from, along with many of the Turks who live in Dalston, mostly Marxist-Leninists rather than Islamists according to Ergen. Nazli belongs to the Zaza race – nothing to do with Zsa Zsa Gabor – who, she explains, are very tolerant muslims who don’t go to mosques, do drink wine and were a strong influence when it came to creating a secular society. ‘The play,’ says Ergen, is ‘a great story about immigration.’ Mountain villages were a haven for young communists. ‘You have to give them shelter, and in any case Turkey’s a very hospitable country,’ continues Ergen. ‘They leave and then the army arrives and accuses the villagers of feeding the terrorists.’

‘It’s a story of people stuck between government and revolutionary groups. It happens everywhere in the world. People who don’t know anything are caught in between,’ says Nazli.

She herself once woke up to find an armed guerilla sitting at the end of her bed. On another occasion a sergeant lined up her family and pulled her thick, black hair asking whether it had been combed by her terrorist lover. So unsurprisingly it’s an emotional subject. ‘I sometimes feel in rehearsal,’ says Nazli, ‘that all my organs are out and people are fingering them.’

‘And you cry too,’ complains Ergen. ‘So do the actors. There’s too much crying. I need to take a break.’ Interestingly, they both hesitate when I ask whether the play could be shown in Istanbul. They don’t say ‘no’, but they certainly don’t say ‘yes’ either.

Their initial aversion to running a specifically Turkish theatre clearly stems from their own efforts to climb out of the ghetto. Neither of them could speak English when they first arrived and yet over the past decade they have made a massive contribution to London theatre. Orient Express is a carefully chosen title in that there are strong links with Ergen’s work back in Istanbul where he has been taking a number of British theatremakers in order to stimulate a dormant interest in new writing – some of those plays will be given readings at the Arcola during the season.

Ergen also supplements his paltry Arcola income by working at Istanbul’s national theatre, one of the largest in the world, boasting 200 actors, 200 technicians and seven theatres. The money it spends on hand-made gloves would probably cover the production costs for ‘Silver Birch’. ‘When I ask them what my budget is, they say “whatever you want”,’ says Ergen. ‘On the fringe, we are used to having excuses because of lack of money, time or poor equipment. But out there everything is provided for, and if it doesn’t look good you know it’s down to you.’

‘Silver Birch House’ is running at the Arcola Theatre; ‘Pera Palas’ previews from June 12.