By Heidi Trautmann

We have a new theatre in Alsancak, a young stage. Hüseyin Kombayci, the 22 years old founder and art director of the recently opened Alsançak Municipality Theatre, says: “Ben bir Alsançakli/I am an Alsançakian and I want to see a theatre in my home village.” He and three other young men, Arda H. Dağli, Onur Kayabaşı and Cafer Yeşilovalı, all students of Prof M.Bozkurt Kuruc, Cetin Özen and Hilmi Özen of the Theatre faculty of the Near East University, in the second and third year respectively, have decided to found the stage which they have named in honour of Prof. M. Bozkurt Kuruç, the basic for their future life, a theatre they plan to further build up hence they have finished their studies.

I have seen their first play at our village theatre – I happen to live in the neighbouring village - a very modest place, but everything is there you need for the beginning: a stage, wide enough to act on, reaching down into the house, it has lighting with its control cabin, and it has a curtain; there is enough room for theatre lovers, perhaps 80 seats, correct me if I am wrong. The play was on for the whole month of December 2011. An automatic voice even alarmed us  when it was about time to sit down. Free entrance!

It is the first independent learning curve for the students, the first step to become true theatre novices with the intention to learn and practice all about their profession, close to reality, even sweeping the floor and doing all the jobs which are necessary, getting the support of the municipality and their friends and families. A moment to be very proud and happy. I know about it because I talked to them later.

The young theatre group has chosen a very ambitious theme for their first appearance in public, a piece to reflect the life of Nazim Hikmet, in a sort of diary, scenes from his life, scenes from his dreams or from his memory; with four actors playing different parts of his life in different places.  How did the village people take it, I ask, it is not just entertainment, it takes involvement. “They loved it and we have seen people cry over it. They love poetry, especially Nazim Hikmet.”

Well done, I like the stage work, the partition by a screen in the back of the stage lit from behind where the other life of Nazim takes place, or the four different characters all being one and the same. I want to include here the autobiography of Nazim Hikmet the translation of which I have taken from internet to introduce his life to my readers, many of them may not have heard of him.

I watched the four characters closely, and although they are still right in the middle of studying theatre, they definitely have proven their talent; the role demands adult men, they are adult on stage and when I met them personally, they were in my eyes kids, and I told them so. How have they distributed the responsbilities, I ask.

“In our theatre group we are all equals, we have the same voice, we are a team and do all jobs necessary and our friends and families help, it is a great feeling. Our teachers came once or twice and gave us some advice.” You can feel the hands of the teachers, the philosophy of teaching but it is the personalities of the actors that will determine the future of the theatre.

Where did they come from, these young theatre people from Alsançak, on what background did these talents grow. Two of them visited me at my house and we talked. “My parents are farmers and we still have cows and sheep and do grow all we need. They have always supported me in my decision to study theatre. The urge to make theatre and music is in our family, my sister wants to become an opera singer, and I am training my voice for using it in my profession. I didn’t ask him to sing for me but one day I will hear him sing. The other young man from Alsançak told me of a similar background. They want to bring all kind of plays onto stage, comedy, drama, classics and also musicals, so good voices and dancing is absolutely needed. Education at the theatre faculty today includes all perspectives of the performing arts which is most important today to be internationally accepted and recognized.

I have been invited to be present for the exams, so I will learn more about the faculty and the way of teaching.

Autobiography

Nazim Hikmet

I was born in 1902

I never once went back to my birthplace

I don't like to turn back

at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo

at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University

at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest

and I've been a poet since I was fourteen

some people know all about plants some about fish

I know separation

some people know the names of the stars by heart

I recite absences

I've slept in prisons and in grand hotels

I've known hunger even a hunger strike and there's almost no food

I haven't tasted

at thirty they wanted to hang me

at forty-eight to give me the Peace Prize

which they did

at thirty-six I covered four square meters of concrete in half a year

at fifty-nine I flew from Prague to Havana in eighteen hours

I never saw Lenin I stood watch at his coffin in '24

in '61 the tomb I visit is his books

they tried to tear me away from my party

it didn't work

nor was I crushed under the falling idols

in '51 I sailed with a young friend into the teeth of death

in '52 I spent four months flat on my back with a broken heart

waiting to die

I was jealous of the women I loved

I didn't envy Charlie Chaplin one bit

I deceived my women

I never talked my friends' backs

I drank but not every day

I earned my bread money honestly what happiness

out of embarrassment for others I lied

I lied so as not to hurt someone else

but I also lied for no reason at all

I've ridden in trains planes and cars

most people don't get the chance

I went to opera

most people haven't even heard of the opera

and since '21 I haven't gone to the places most people visit

mosques churches temples synagogues sorcerers

but I've had my coffee grounds read

my writings are published in thirty or forty languages

in my Turkey in my Turkish they're banned

cancer hasn't caught up with me yet

and nothing says it will

I'll never be a prime minister or anything like that

and I wouldn't want such a life

nor did I go to war

or burrow in bomb shelters in the bottom of the night

and I never had to take to the road under diving planes

but I fell in love at almost sixty

in short comrades

even if today in Berlin I'm croaking of grief

I can say I've lived like a human being

and who knows

how much longer I'll live

what else will happen to me

This autobiography was written

in east Berlin on 11 September 1961