By Heidi Trautmann…….
Showing – 4th to 31st March 2022 at Erol Avgören Cultural Centre Çatalköy….
We all try to keep up the impression that life is back to normal; we have started again to visit art exhibitions and theatre plays and so we have welcomed the announcement of the “Besparmak Theatre Days” supported by the Çatalköy and Girne Municipalities with great relıef. I had visited the last Beşparmak Theatre Festival with equally beautiful plays in 2019.
This year’s event started with a play written by Burçhan Göze, an actor, writer, and musician, who had won the first prize in the Girne Municipality’s playwriting competition. My respect to the Municipality to have initiated such projects to support creative development in North Cyprus.
“Pygmalion, a Democracy Musical” was put onto the stage as the cooperation of our two theatre companies GIBETSU and TIYATRO SU, directed by Derman Atik and Cenk Gürçağ, and among the actors were many I knew from other plays in the past. Well done. A musical about a hypothetical Kingdom in Cyprus and its fight for democracy, peppered with many local characteristics and mixed with stories of the Pygmalion legend, a dream.
The stage setting was simple, reduced to the symbol of the throne, nothing else, the story was told by the people of the kingdom, their body language, and their fantastic costumes. The stage was alight with lovely bright colours – developed by Derman Atik, I read – worn by the members of the chorus, dancing and singing Cypriot melodies which brought the audience to clap their hands and sing along with them; the story could be today just as well. I enjoyed the acting of the main characters, but also the absolutely free movements of all actors within the space of the auditorium, jumping from the stage, directly addressing the audience in questions of importance, and entering and leaving the stage from all sides, somehow telling us, our problems might be yours as well, so you just listen.
Please read the details of the cast on the attached picture. I am sure that this play will be repeated during the coming year in one of the local theatres.
The following plays by other companies will be just as exciting for me to see, please read the announcements on the poster. The play on 15 March I have seen before in Nicosia ‘Waiting for Godot’ and I can only say, a Must to see, a fantastic experience.
You can get your tickets at the Çatalkoy Municipality or at the theatre itself. Reservation Tel. Nos. 0533 856 1569 / 0548 866 1489. Parking is possible at the Belediye parking area.
