One of this season’s new plays, “Geçen Gün” offers theatergoers a different kind of experience with its sound design, dynamic direction and energetic performances

Müjde Işıl*

How do you tell a familiar city story differently? “Geçen Gün”, one of this season’s new plays, has been staged to give more than one answer to this question. It has a story, and the performers of that story are not only the actors, but also the sounds constructed on stage and a dynamism that never loses its rhythm… In the play, written by Kerem Kurdoğlu and directed by Naz Erayda and Kurdoğlu, Esme Madra and Ozan Çelik take the stage, accompanied by the music of Tophane Noise Band. The result is a play that could be called performance theater, one that involves the audience in an experience beyond the ordinary.

Yes, this is a city story… One could also call it an Istanbul story in which all contrasts are lived out. A city accompanied by the cries of seagulls yet overwhelmed by the noise of traffic, safe in the crowd yet uncanny on deserted streets, where, between sometimes getting lost and sometimes running into a soulmate, the shift between being civilized and getting into a fight takes only seconds… Our two protagonists, one a woman and the other a man, encounter all kinds of events and people as they walk down the street amid the chaos of the city. City life has filled us with so much anxiety that even a gesture of kindness makes the other person suspicious. The play makes the audience dream that two strangers who happen to come together to help another stranger might be free of these anxieties and hold on to each other.

Esme Madra and Ozan Çelik, whom we also know well from cinema, physically reflect the bustle of city life on stage with great dynamism. Now they walk in place, now they run, now they go up and down stairs. Tophane Noise Band, meanwhile, create the sounds and music of the city with their unusual instruments while also accompanying Madra and Çelik as performers. If you are open to styles beyond classical narratives, “Geçen Gün” promises an experience that will meet your expectations. The play can be seen at Kundura Sahne.

*This article was published in the February 22 issue of the Milliyet newspaper.