1. The two issues are not unrelated, since the on-going offensive against the Kurds is draining Turkey's finances, and the Islamist candidates, aside from supporting more religion in public life, have been concerned with practical matters of offering basic amenities to the poor.

2. With the appointment of Refah leader Necmettin Erbakan to the post of Prime Minister, Islamists were likely to gain their biggest share of power in Turkey's modern history. But Turkey's secularist elite, led by the military, opposed Erbakan, whom they feared would replace constitutional law with Koranic law after more than seventy years of secularism, and steer NATO-member Turkey away from the western camp. Though they were able to oust him in 1997, other Refah members throughout the country have held on to their posts. The court decision to outlaw the entire party has incurred a negative response from the United States which suggested that Turkey needed more democratic expression, not less. The political impasse has also impaired Turkey's ability to deal with the thirteen-year-long Kurdish rebel insurgency, its tense relations with Greece over Cyprus, and its deep economic woes. See ‘Erbakan Tells Yilmaz: Don't Repeat Mistakes’, Turkish Daily News, 9 June 1996.

3. In the 1920s (at the beginning of the Republic founded by Mustapha Kemal Ataturk), Turks had been curbed in the practice of their faith. Fulfilment of the duty of pilgrimage to Mecca had become almost impossible. Prayer was in Turkish, not in the Arabic of the Prophet, and theological colleges were closed. But in 1950, as the result of democratic elections, religious education was restored in public schools, and Arabic was reinstated as the language of religion, which pleased rural Anatolians but alienated army officers, educated people, journalists, and students. The government retired judges and dismissed civil servants who opposed the moves, and journalists were imprisoned. After a Kemalist revolution led by a group of army officers in 1959, elections were held in 1960, but coalition governments proved ineffective and the army remained the real power. In the 1960s there was neither a return to Ataturk's anti-clericalism, nor a policy of strengthening religious intervention in public life. Turkey has under-gone coups d'état in both 1970 and 1980. See Stewart, Desmond, Turkey (New York: Time, 1965), p. 107.Google Scholar

4. The last major exodus of writers and dramatists from Turkey occurred in 1980 at the time of the military takeover, demonstrating that it is not the Islamists that pose the only threat to freedom of expression. See de Bruijn, Petra, ‘Turkish Theatre: Autonomous Entity to Multicultural Compound’, Theatre Intercontinental: Forms, Functions, Correspondences, ed. Barfoot, C. C. and Boredewijk, Cobi (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi B.V., 1993), p. 192.Google Scholar

5. Observers of Turkish politics suggest that the success of Islamic candidates does not necessarily threaten to turn Turkey into another Iran or Afghanistan. Polls show that most of Erbakan's supporters simply wanted good and populist government. In her article covering the International Istanbul Theatre Festival in 1997, Elinor Fuchs makes the common American mistake of equating ‘Islamist’ with ‘fundamentalist’. Moreover, she says the Festival was ‘facing West’ – but modern Turkish theatre and the International Festival have always ‘faced West’. See Elinor Fuchs, ‘Istanbul Looking West: Art or Politics?’, American Theatre, XIV, No. 10, p. 40.

6. Kemal, Yasar, ‘Feldzug der Lugen’, Der Spiegel, 9 01 1995, p. 134–8.Google Scholar

7. ‘A Painful Absurdity’, Turkish Daily News, 13 April 1996.

8. See ‘Kemal Sentence Underlines Double Standards in Turkey’, an editorial by the Turkish Daily News publisher Ilnur Cevik, in Turkish Daily News, 21 March 1996. In 1997 Kemal received a peace prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and his sentence has been postponed unless within five years he commits the same crime.

9. Arthur Miller wrote to Kemal, a personal friend: ‘In this age, when we send our thoughts anywhere at the touch of a button, you are forbidden, on pain of imprisonment, of letting certain thoughts past your lips. What a painful absurdity! And what power is coiled in this evil seed of suppression that it can be destroyed, so it would seem, in one country [Russia] only to rise on the wind to sprout again in another [Turkey]! If it were not so serious it would be a theme for a comedy, a farce, in fact’. See ‘A Painful Absurdity’, Turkish Daily News, 13 April 1996.

10. O'Byrne, David, ‘Taking Kafka to Court’, Turkish Daily News, 25 03 1996.Google Scholar

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid. See also Seventh International Istanbul Theatre Festival programme, p. 100–3.

13. The group's name, meaning ‘an ironic joke’, was inspired by Musfik Kenter, Turkey's foremost actor and the teacher of many of the Tiyatro Ti actors. Kenter had said, ‘Theatre is a serious joke.’.

14. Interview with the author, 2 April 1996.

15. A position in the State Theatre is a sinecure for life, which, although it once promised dramatists a measure of security, has now become an obstacle to development and prevents an influx of new talent. The lists are swollen with actors who rarely get on stage and Gunsiray, among others, has been vocal in his criticism of this situation, calling it moribund.

16. Performed in the 250-seat theatre below the Café Marti, a well-known gathering place for artists on Istiklal Caddesi, its audience was more upscale than one might have expected. Young professionals – doctors, lawyers, government workers, as well as dramatists – came during the first week. Performances of small independent troupes are more expensive than those at state or municipal theatres, which are heavily subsidized. Student tickets are especially cheap.

Although newspaper theatre reviews are now scant, with none of the leading papers employing a regular reviewer as they did in the 1960s, Gunsiray's recent notoriety, and news articles discussing the meaning of the play (rather than the performance) aroused the public's curiosity. Devrim Nas, one of the founders of Tiyatro Ti, said, however, that government support for such groups is so minuscule that the members pay for it out of their own pockets, leaving the future of Tiyatro Ti in jeopardy.

17. ‘Wrong to Call Nazim Hikmet a Traitor, Says Welfare Party Deputy’, Turkish Daily News, 15 January 1996.

18. Koyuncuoglu, Emre, ‘Diyarbakir Belediye Tiyatrosu Kapatildi’ (‘The Mayor Closed Down the Municipal Theatre of Diyarbakir’), Tiyatrosu, 11 1995, p. 8–9.Google Scholar

19. The Refah mayor in Ankara, Melih Gokcek, did not like a number of statues in the city, claiming they violated the Islamic law which bans reproduction of the human figure. A sculpture in a public park which abstractly depicts a couple embracing came under fire, but its removal was prevented by a group of outraged artists. The sculptor has brought the case to court. A Hittite sculpture at the entrance to the city, a nationalist and anti-Ottoman symbol since the 1920s, also incited the mayor's displeasure, but rather than approach the subject of its removal directly, it was deemed necessary for the construction of a new overpass. Interview with Sibel Zandi-Sayek, 13 September 1996.

20. In the 1994 municipal elections, many of these new migrant voters protested against the corruption in the ruling party and its lack of concern for their plight, and elected the pro-Islamic Welfare Party candidate, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as mayor of Istanbul. A former soccer player and civil servant, Erdogan promised to eliminate corruption, provide equitable services to all, and shut down the brothels. It was this promise of social services for the poor that empowered the religious right, since the secularists have ignored this large group for too long. Erdogan installed new water pipelines, new garbage dumps away from the areas in which the poor live, shifted the city to natural gas away from the lignite coal which had been the chief cause of pollution, and created greater incentives to complete the metro system. See ‘Islamists in Power’, Turkish Daily News, 3 June 1996.

21. Interview with author, 4 April 1996. See Ionesco, Eugene, Rhinoceros, trans. Watson, Donald (Harmonds-worth: Penguin, 1959), p. 124.Google Scholar

22. Ergenc, Erdinc, ‘Cultural, Artistic Changes Subtle but Present’, Turkish Daily News, 1 04 1996.Google Scholar

23. Both Egypt and Iran had lively developing theatres which were directly affected by the change in the political climate: 'The years following the 1967 war with Israel and the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981 were not good for the development of Egyptian theatre. Difficult economic conditions during the war years were followed by an upsurge in Islamic religious fundamentalism which made stage productions difficult.

‘In Iran, the revolution of 1978–79 stopped much of the theatrical activity that had taken place under the Pahlavi regime, making the future of theatre much less certain. Theatrical training schools and regular performances in public virtually ceased in Iran. National Iranian Radio-Television, its name changed to “The Voice and Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran”, produced dramas on revolutionary themes for television, but stage drama was viewed with great suspicion’. Cambridge Guide to World Theatre, ed. Banham, Martin (Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 673–5.Google Scholar

24. And, Metin, A History of Theatre and Popular Entertainment in Turkey (Ankara: Forum Yayinlari, 1964), p. 11Google Scholar. ‘Orthodox Islam in the early period of its existence, categorically forbade the representation of living beings and especially human faces. This ban was generally explained by the fact that Islam aspired to fight idolatry and to fortify monotheism.… Moreover, the representation of living beings might seem to the orthodox Moslem an intrusion into the creative activity of God, an imitation of the creatures of Allah’. See also Martinovitch, Nicholas N., Turkish Theatre (New York: Theatre Arts, 1933), p. 35–6Google Scholar.

25. Ibid.

26. Martinovitch, op. cit., p. 36.

27. And, op. cit., p. 11.

28. And, op. cit., p. 41.

29. Halman, Talat Sait, Modern Turkish Drama (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1976), p. 18.Google Scholar

30. During the past few years, the one time of the year that the more secular-leaning dramatists make use of Ottoman theatre traditions is during the holy month of Ramadan. Merih Tangun, a teacher at Mimar Sinan, says that during Ramadan it is popular ‘to go back to one's roots’. Interview with the author, 3 April 1996.

31. Uz, Rengin, ‘Feleck Bir Gun Salakken’ (‘One Day When Fate Was Stupid’), Tiyatrosu, 03 1996, p. 22.Google Scholar

32. Brecht has been a favourite author with Turkish dramatists since the 1960s. His epic theatre has also been particularly embraced by some actors and troupes, such as the Dostlar Tiyatro. Fuchs comments on the dominance of the German presence at the International Festival and the success of the Berliner Ensemble's performance of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. Zeliha Berksoy, a German-trained Brecht advocate and actress with the State Theatre, suggests that Brecht especially suits the Turkish temperament. ‘Brecht liked the Mediterranean peoples. The Germans perform his works with a harsh edge, but the Turks and their southern European neighbours give his plays a softer, more languid style’.

Berksoy, herself the daughter of a famous opera singer, regularly performs Brecht/Weill songs. She suggests that Brecht offers something familiar in style to the traditional Turkish theatre, orta oyunu, so that audiences and actors alike relate to it, even if unconsciously. Although Brecht's plays were most popular in the 1960s and he is now somewhat out of fashion, she feels his work takes on additional poignancy in the 1990s because of the rise of a yuppy-style entreprenurism and political corruption. Interview with author, 3 April 1996.

Only one Brecht play has ever been prevented from opening, when, in 1960, the Municipal Theatre was for-bidden to play Good Woman of Setzuan because of the Moslem interdiction against representation of the gods.

The Threepenny Opera had already inspired a Turkish adaptation, The Ballad of Ali of Keshan, by Haldun Taner, which Sensoy has directed at the Istanbul Municipal Theatre in 1988, and which has been translated into English. See de Bruijn, op. cit., for the history of Brecht production in Turkey.

33. Programme, Seventh International Istanbul Theatre Festival, p. 61–3.

34. Concerned about the development of new buildings destroying Istanbul's famous skyline of minarets and domes, Sensoy wrote Istanbul for Sale, which was translated into English in 1991.

35. In the Turkish Constitution of 1961, wider freedoms were enacted, enabling playwrights to deal with social and economic problems in less guarded or allegorical terms, bringing to the stage a whole spectrum of political themes and tensions. By the end of the decade over thirty plays were being offered on any given day in Istanbul and Ankara. (See Halman, op. cit., p. 38–40.) Macgowan and de Bruijn, too, expressed astonishment at the breadth of theatrical offerings in Istanbul during the 1960s. The quantity and range is still impressive in the 1990s, with up to twenty different productions a week.

36. The introduction and growing popularity of European theatre occurred in the mid-nineteenth century. Concerned that western troupes would dominate, the mayor of Istanbul, Cemil Pasha, started a conservatory of music and theatre in 1914. Called Darulbedayi i Osmani, this was headed first by Andrté Antoine, who returned to France at the outbreak of war, the conservatory then being directed by Muhsin Ertugrul. Darulbedayi gave its first performance – Rotten Foundations by Emile Fabre, adapted by Huseyin Suat – in 1916, and became the Istanbul City Theatre in 1931. With both the City Theatre and the foundation of state theatres in Ankara and Istanbul in 1940, the promotion and production of Turkish plays was guaranteed. See Taskan, Deniz, Theatre in Turkey (Ankara: Directorate General of Press and Information, 1993), p. 4–5.Google Scholar

Turkey never developed a specific style of court theatre. The court interest in western theatre helped to promote it in the city for the general public. The small theatre in the Yildiz Palace, Istanbul, is the only extant court theatre in Turkey. Built by Sultan Abdulhamit II in 1889, it hosted many European luminaries such as Sarah Bernhardt – whom, however, the Sultan refused to watch, because she acted death scenes too effectively. See Halman, op. cit., p. 36.

37 Macgowan, Kenneth, ‘Notes on Turkish Theatre’, Drama Survey, No. 3 (Winter 1962), p. 322.Google Scholar

38. Stewart, op. cit., p. 119. In addition to the municipal and state theatre system, Ataturk created Halkevleri, or ‘people's houses’ for community cultural projects and education. Five hundred were established in the 1930s, and inspired the formation of many theatre companies, but President Menderes dismantled the Halkevleri in the 1950s.

39. Interview with author, 5 April 1996.

40. Ibid.

41. Uz, Rengin, ‘Ciddi Bir Komedi Oynuyoruz’ (‘It's a Serious Comedy’), Tiyatrosu, 12 1995, p. 52–6.Google Scholar

42. Fugard, Athol, Road to Mecca (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1985), p. 60–1.Google Scholar

43. Fuchs correctly intuits that Renter's performance of Maria Callas in The Master Class was a vehicle to express a ‘political statement about the transcendent role of art in human culture’, similar to the actress's own view. See Fuchs, op. cit., p. 42.

44. Interview with author, 5 April 1996. Tiyatro Studyosu won acclaim with its Premiere of Turgay Nar's Garbage Dump shown at the Seventh Istanbul International Theatre Festival, 1995. Set in the Middle Ages, the play is a poetical allegory of contemporary quandaries and sense of displacement.

45. Interview with author, 4 April 1996, and interview with Ambassador Yuksel Soylemez, Taipei, 26 April 1996.

46. Stewart, op. cit., p. 120.

47. The government has put an end to their increase by mandating an extension of compulsory public education.

48. Halman, op. cit., p. 38.

49. Quoted in programme for the Seventh International Istanbul Theatre Festival.