Description

This anthology of six contemporary plays from Turkey captures such global themes as questions of identity, poverty, class conflict, oppression, and displacement while shedding light on current cultural and political matters in Turkey, a country literally at the border of the West and the East that is recovering from military coups and still seeking to establish democracy and human rights.

The title play, Mustafa Kaplan's Solum, deals with questions of home and identity as explored through physical research on the performer's body. Other plays included are Murathan Mungan's As on the Page, which utilizes traditional performing techniques of Asia Minor and reveals subtle cultural details about Eastern Turkey; Tuncer Cücenoğlu's Avalanche, which focuses on events in a village where people who live under fear and oppression take extreme measures to prevent an avalanche; Şahika Tekand's Eurydice's Cry, an adaption of Sophocles' Antigone; Özen Yula's For Rent, which tells the stories of outcast characters; and Emre Koyuncuoğlu's Home Sweet Home, which discusses displacement and the homeland.

Solum and Other Plays from Turkey includes a comprehensive introduction that contextualizes the plays within contemporary Turkey and examines the diverse aesthetic and stylistic characteristics of each playwright, making this an important resource for scholars of Turkey and theater and performance studies.