“The hallmark of ‘Geçen Gün’, and what sets it apart from its contemporaries, is that it evokes an innovative, horizontally structured understanding of theater.”

Gülin Dede Üstün*

Naz Erayda and Kerem Kurdoğlu, known for their search for new forms beyond prevailing approaches to theater, have come before us with Geçen Gün, their first joint work apart from their individual projects since Kumpanya, the company they founded in 1991 and one of the cornerstones of Turkish theater history. The play, which we had the chance to see at Beykoz Kundura’s Kundura Sahne, a stage that has hosted alternative performance explorations from Türkiye and abroad since its founding, is also the first theater production produced by Kundura Sahne. With the presence of Tophane Noise Band, which brought this collaboration about and serves both as the project’s executive producer and, in a sense, as one of its performers, we have the chance to witness one of the most singular partnerships of recent times.

Two people in the city: on stage, Esme Madra and Ozan Çelik tell us of a series of encounters, blending the meanings and anxieties they attach to the intersections they experience in everyday life with space, time, body, sound, material and light. Having to travel to a distant corner of the city to watch this series of encounters also lets you view the meaning the play offers from a closer vantage point once you arrive. My own visit to Geçen Gün’s world began at the end of a long but enjoyable journey, made up of a taxi ride on a cold winter day, a Bosphorus ferry departing from Üsküdar, and a walk through the unfamiliar streets of Beykoz, taking the long way around. Perhaps that is why, while watching Geçen Gün, influenced by the encounters and conversations I had along the way, Walter Benjamin’s concept of the flâneur (the idle city wanderer) suddenly came to mind. First, I tried to remember what kind of relationship I, as Gülin, have with the street. Idleness, with the aspects that bring it both very close to and very far from the play and from myself, kept circling in my head. In the streets once roamed by the city’s bohemian, thinking wanderers, Erayda and Kurdoğlu’s characters wandered somewhat more uneasily, even grumpily. I, on the other hand, was trying to build a more peaceful relationship with the street despite all the unease one might encounter. Yet at the same time, rather than watching like a flâneur, I too, like the play’s characters, was engaging more with those whose paths crossed mine and with what I witnessed. But every time they engaged, they felt more threatened. Although it ultimately reaches for a hopeful smile, and although the text written by Kurdoğlu tries to make peace with the city with the words “What a fascinating city this is. Every corner is beautiful in its own way. Every corner holds another surprise,” it also betrays the uncanniness in which it is trapped with these words: “The other day I was walking down the street. With this really baaad feeling inside. Something ominous. As if something bad could happen at any moment. As if the street was darker than ever.”

This “energetic!” unease spread throughout the story will no doubt also strike the classical theatergoer through its mode of storytelling. Many of the means of conveyance we are used to encountering are absent from this play. The audience is met with a narrative that begins by deconstructing language and relies on repetition. Although this at times causes moments of disconnection from the play, Erayda and Kurdoğlu’s direction knows how to win the audience back very quickly. In a sense, it both draws the audience in and leaves them room to keep their distance. The stories the actors share by breaking them apart word by word turn into sentences and paragraphs as the minutes pass. As their words multiply, so do the materials that accompany their journey. As the simple, unpretentious choice of text merges with music and dance, stairs, slopes and bricks appear in their path. The Tophane Noise Band team, whom we see at times as singers when the text turns into music, at times as dancers through their performances, at times as operators creating the city’s ambiance with discarded materials at the back, and at times as city builders placing obstacles in the actors’ way, become part of the story as a kind of third performer, and the text is enriched by their presence.

Although we are familiar with their spirit from the works of the Çıplak Ayaklar Kumpanyası, I first encountered Tophane Noise Band’s early sounds in the Podacto project, an audio theater experience. The group, which brings to life music performances built from sounds drawn from discarded materials that Mihran Tomasyan collected in the storeroom of his ÇAK workshop, has evidently turned its collaboration with Erayda and Kurdoğlu into a laboratory work. Like flâneurs searching the streets for what is original and unique, they have set out in pursuit of that originality and uniqueness together with all the other disciplines with which they have joined forces. The movement arrangement by Tomasyan and Maral Ceranoğlu forms the backbone of the play almost like a form of direction. Madra and Çelik shine on stage, never letting their high-effort pace drop, while also commanding the fragmented text. They have become a seamless duo on stage, with neither overshadowing the other. Utku Kara’s lighting design remains in my memory as one of the most dazzling lighting designs of the year. When Tophane Noise Band’s long workbench, made up of materials and also defining the dimensions of the stage, comes together with Beykoz Kundura’s restored architecture and the lighting design, it turns into a magnificent spectacle. At this point, I think the hallmark of Geçen Gün, and what sets it apart from its contemporaries, is that it evokes an innovative, horizontally structured understanding of theater.

The play’s promotional text asks itself, and perhaps us, the following questions:

“Is this a concert? / A dance show? / A play? / A performance? / None of them. / All of them.”

Geçen Gün is an experience in which, whichever one you take away, you can answer yes for the others. It truly is both all of them and none of them.

*This article was published on Argontolar.com. (February 9, 2024)