“With the incredibly fast-paced and harmonious performance of its two actors, its set made up of a few pieces that are constantly given new functions, and its accomplished stage and lighting design, ‘Geçen Gün’ is a production you watch with bated breath.”

Asu Maro*

This is what city life has become. We can’t feel completely safe anywhere. The moment we step out of our homes, our ‘cocoons’ (and not even there, which brings to mind Adalet Ağaoğlu’s “Kozalar” [Cocoons]), we are alone, tiny, and everyone seems to be coming at us. Will someone shove us with a shoulder, will someone snatch our phone and run, will someone make a snide remark, what will happen to make us feel awful? We can’t tell. We are anxious, fearful. Like the two people we watched in “Geçen Gün” at Beykoz Kundura.

“Geçen Gün”, the new season production of Kundura Sahne, a venue with an impressive atmosphere, bears the signature of Naz Erayda and Kerem Kurdoğlu, the founders of Kumpanya, which has created its own audience with its extraordinary works since 1991. The text was written by Kerem Kurdoğlu, who also co-directed it with Naz Erayda. Two people on stage, a woman and a man, tell us city stories, completing and sometimes repeating each other’s sentences. Events that any of us might experience “the other day”. On the bus someone might press right up against us, someone might kick the bodywork of a car, someone might cut in front of everyone in line, a security guard might rudely ask for our ID… “We’d know how to deal with them, of course,” but we can’t; we are civilized people, we are against violence. We are left loathing ourselves for days.

From the promotional text: “Two people who constantly encounter each other, pass each other by, collide, but never truly see each other. They try to cope with the city. One moment they are the victims, the next they are gnawed by guilt”… One night, these two anxious city dwellers, played by Esme Madra and Ozan Çelik, are followed by someone on a dark street. Or so they think. And of course they think this pursuit has bad intentions. “The things they read about in the news do happen to someone, after all,” don’t they?” It is one of those moments when we quicken our steps, get ready to turn around and scream, and secretly search our bag for something to defend ourselves with. You probably know that feeling very well. And that strange mix of embarrassment and relief that comes when the harm you expected turns out to be a kindness…

With the incredibly fast-paced and harmonious performance of its two actors, its set made up of a few pieces that are constantly given new functions, and its accomplished stage and lighting design, “Geçen Gün” is a production you watch with bated breath. As for the music of Tophane Noise Band, who give a surprising performance on instruments made from urban waste (buckets, water jugs, lids), it is, in a word, dizzying. Just like the city itself.

*This article was published in the February 15, 2024 issue of the Milliyet newspaper.