Perikızı

The play Perikızı by Emine Sevgi Özdamar is based on her autobiographical novel "The Bridge of the Golden Horn", the second book in her Istanbul trilogy. Perikızı, a young girl from Istanbul, drops out of school and goes to Germany to become an actress – despite her family’s advice not to. Her greatest dream is to play Titania in Midsummer Night’s Dream at all of Europe’s biggest theatres. She arrives in the wonderland of Germany with a one-year employment contract, but is soon forced to earn money as a chambermaid. Perikızı’s story is the condensed collection of dreams and nightmares of millions of people. The director Michael Ronen staged the play as a dream, combining the oral story-telling traditions of the Orient with the fairytales of the Occident. The heroine finds herself in a surreal world and slips into one role after another – she is Titania, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood, or sometimes all of them at once. In this play, Shakespeare meets the meddâhs, the traditional storytellers of the Middle East. The production was accompanied by a theatre workshop for school children who portrayed their own “Perikızı experiences” on stage.

Director: Michael Ronen, Dramaturge: Tunçay Kulaoglu, Music: Nevzat Akpinar, with: Elmira Bahrami, Vernesa Berbo, Melek Erenay, Cem Sultan Ungan, Mehmet Yılmaz.

Venue and schedule:
Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin, Premiere: 27 Sep. 2011 and 28 – 30 Sep, 06 – 08 Oct., 14 – 17 Nov. 2011