The Arcola Theatre, up in rough-and-tumble Dalston, is a hotbed of alternative vitality, always trying out new ideas and approaches, politically engaged, with a perspective that spans the globe. The theatre, formerly in a rambling industrial building on Arcola Street, moved a few blocks south in January 2011, a few steps from the Dalston Junction overground station.
The area has a cosmopolitan mix, with a strong Turkish presence, evidenced by many Turkish restaurants, authentic and inexpensive. The founder and Artistic Director of the Arcola, Mehmet Ergun, is Turkish, managing a dual career spanning London and Istanbul.
This provides a context for Adini Söyle / Say Your Name, a collective creation about the demonstrations in Gezi Park, Istanbul. The piece, the result of 15 weeks of effort, was performed in Turkish, with English surtitles, by a cast of thirteen.
The production, a series of vignettes, had the uneven quality that often results from group creation. There were powerful moments (two young people, surviving a tear gas attack, finding companionship), and episodes that, one might say, need more work. Two things made the evening memorable: the commitment of the company to what was being communicated and the events that were being described. Where the piece lacked polish, it substituted immediacy, the sense that the performers had rushed away from the fray to give us their report. The performers were engaging and believable, and they had something important to say to us, the audience sitting in front of them.
Afterwards, sitting in the Arcola Bar, we fell into conversation with two Turkish people, one who lives in Moscow, and the other an actor in the company. They told us how, during the protests in Istanbul, they sat in front of their televisions all day, unable to do anything else while people like them, people they knew, fought for basic rights and values. This sense of connection, of our own involvement, came across through this piece of theatre.
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