A NORA'S HOUSE
Whose House is This?
Seda Elhan
Tiyatro Boyalı Kuş // Theatre Painted Bird // Istanbul
As a member of Tiyatro Boyalı Kuş - Istanbul based feminist theatre company since 2000 - it is very significant for me to write about our recent play "A Nora’s House", written by our artistic director Jale Karabekir, and inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s "A Doll’s House" (Nora). I have taken an active part in the group since 2019, before that time I was just an ordinary audience to the group’s productions. While the aim of Tiyatro Boyalı Kuş is to promote feminist theatre in Turkey and abroad, to create a new theatrical language, and to develop feminist modes of production; like my experience, many people were first introduced to feminist dramaturgy and the re-interpretation of classical texts from a feminist perspective through the plays of Tiyatro Boyalı Kuş, especially in Turkey.
My own development in Tiyatro Boyalı Kuş started with learning, thinking, and talking more about women’s position in the patriarchal system, especially women’s struggle, and feminism. My way of viewing has changed, I began to be more into the ‘causes and reasons’ that were happening around me with a feminist perspective. The dramaturgy, the productions and the working methods nurture my professional life as well as my personal life and keep changing and transforming me and my work. Yet in this post, I want to share my experiences of "A Nora’s House". While the well-known play, "A Doll’s House" was written at the end of the 19th century and has become a classic in the theatre history and recognized as one of the most important examples of women’s struggle, as a monodrama "A Nora’s House" is asking the major question: "What does the 21st century’s House look like?"; and as a solo performer I am asking and questioning the main question: "Whose House is This?"
"A Nora’s House" is an experimental performance with a structure that performatively criticizes the heteronormative social order we are living in. It also discusses the issues raised in the original play, "A Doll’s House", with a comparative perspective, regarding the prospects of 21st century, and focuses on the conflicts and contradictions in today’s system-individual-society relationships. Audience is welcomed by me as an actor - a real estate agent as a fictive character, but in that theatrical reality, she’s been already an actor herself, just like I am, Seda, in reality. In its reality, the play narrates the story of this female actor, who is employed as a real estate agent and working in Open House events, where she puts all her theatrical and performative skills to sell the houses, just like many actors in the world, just like me, who are obliged to work in fields other than theatre to earn money. As the play continues, the actor finds a crack in this fictive, constructed system, and she tries to talk freely to the audience through this open space she discovers, and to tell them about the reality and to get out of this situation: she is trapped in the system, and she is not allowed to leave this house, as a woman, as an actor, as a worker, as a …
"A Nora’s House" reveals and combines the gender roles and diverse identities, capitalism and patriarchy, contemporary references to climate crisis, and archaic search for feminist screams with music, movement, text and especially intertextual interaction. As an actor, I also have similar experiences with this fictive character as well as similar feelings of being stuck in my daily life, like the character Nora in 19th century, and metaphorically all other Noras who lived in other centuries and in other lands. By offering a structure, a play within a play, where this fictive character is acting as a real estate agent or as an actor, "A Nora’s House" unveils the conflict between the actor and the character, and leads the audience - as well as the actor - towards the desired transformation.
If theatre acts as a mirror, what the reflections will be! If the target of theatre is to enlighten the audience, what the lights will be! Since the opening - March 4, 2024, Istanbul, Turkey - I am asking these questions from the stage. And the journey of "A Nora’s House" both in Turkish and English versions continued in the festivals: 25th Bitola Monodrama Festival (May 2024; Macedonia) and 20th ALBAMONO Monodrama Festival (2024, Korçe, Albania); we want to enrich our staging practice all around the world. This is an open call to all Noras from the Nora at "A Nora’s House".
We should change something! Not only the character, Nora; but also, the Houses!
Not alone … All together …
"A Nora’s House"
Tiyatro Boyali Kus
Text, Choreography and Light Design: Jale Karabekir
Directors: Yeşim Koçak, Jale Karabekir
Music and Sound Design: Murat Hasarı
Dramaturgy: Nelin Dükkancı Yaman, Zeynep Özlem Havuzlu, Uğur Emre Erdem
Stage Design: Cihan Aşar
Costume Design: Sema Işık Saral
Assistant of Director: Pelin Oruç
Poster Design: Rauf Kösemen
Photography and Production Coordination: Arzu Bostancı
Performer: Seda Elhan
