Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Performing New German Realities Turkish German Scripts Of Postmigration Lizzie Stewart full chapter pdf docx
Performing New German Realities Turkish German Scripts Of Postmigration Lizzie Stewart full chapter pdf docx
Turkish-German Scripts of
Postmigration Lizzie Stewart
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/performing-new-german-realities-turkish-german-scri
pts-of-postmigration-lizzie-stewart/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-palgrave-handbook-of-german-
idealism-and-existentialism-1st-ed-edition-jon-stewart/
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-politics-of-german-idealism-
christopher-yeomans/
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-palgrave-handbook-of-german-
romantic-philosophy-elizabeth-millan-brusslan/
https://ebookmass.com/product/craniomandibulare-dysfunktion-
german-edition-paul-ridder/
Basic German 2nd Edition Jolene Wochenske
https://ebookmass.com/product/basic-german-2nd-edition-jolene-
wochenske/
https://ebookmass.com/product/germanys-role-in-european-russia-
policy-a-new-german-power-1st-edition-liana-fix/
https://ebookmass.com/product/complete-german-grammar-2nd-
edition-ed-swick/
https://ebookmass.com/product/blackout-john-milton-10-german-
edition-dawson/
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-german-
politics-1st-edition-klaus-larres/
CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE
INTERACTIONS
SERIES EDITORS: ELAINE ASTON · BRIAN SINGLETON
Performing
New German Realities
Turkish-German Scripts
of Postmigration
Lizzie Stewart
Contemporary Performance InterActions
Series Editors
Elaine Aston, Lancaster University, Lancaster, Lancashire,
UK
Brian Singleton, Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College,
Dublin, Ireland
Theatre’s performative InterActions with the politics of sex, race and
class, with questions of social and political justice, form the focus of
the Contemporary Performance InterActions series. Performative Inter-
Actions are those that aspire to affect, contest or transform. Interna-
tional in scope, CPI publishes monographs and edited collections dedi-
cated to the InterActions of contemporary practitioners, performances
and theatres located in any world context.
Advisory Board
Khalid Amine (Abdelmalek Essaadi University, Morocco)
Bishnupriya Dutt (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India)
Mark Fleishman (University of Cape Town, South Africa)
Janelle Reinelt (University of Warwick, UK)
Freddie Rokem (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
Joanne Tompkins (University of Queensland, Australia)
Harvey Young (Northwestern University, USA)
Performing New
German Realities
Turkish-German Scripts of Postmigration
Lizzie Stewart
King’s College London
London, UK
Cover illustration: Elmira Bahrami as Perikızı in Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Perikızı, dir. by
Michael Ronen (Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin 2011). Copyright Ute Langkafel/Maifoto
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To my mum, Claire Stewart. Thank you for everything.
To the artists, practitioners, thinkers, and friends who I got to spend time
with in writing this book and whose work changes worlds. Thanks also for
changing mine!
Preface
vii
Acknowledgements
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Maagh of Theater der Autoren and Tanja Müller of the Rowohlt Theater-
verlag. I am also very grateful to all of the administrators and theatre prac-
titioners who turned archivist for me, giving me access to materials other-
wise unavailable. In addition to those already named above, these include:
Isabelle Yeginar, Stefan A. Schulz, Sophie Fleckenstein, Sabrina Schmidt,
Flori Gugger, Maike Lautenschütz, Thile von Quist, Christina Ratka,
Felix Mannheim, Monica Marotta, Chantel Kohler, Tunçay Kulaoğlu, Eva
Linke, Osman Tok, Sarah Reimann, Lutz Knospe, Insa Popken, Jenny
Flügge, Verena Schimpf and Julia Mayr. The late Fereidoun Ettehad was
particularly helpful and deserves special mention here. Finally, a thank
you to Tuğsal Moğul, who introduced me to Herr Ettehad and sneaked
me in to see Verrücktes Blut in 2011. Images used in this book are
subject to copyright and are reproduced here with the kind permis-
sion of Emine Sevgi Özdamar; Stefan A. Schultz; Universitätsbibliothek
Frankfurt a.M., Archiv Schauspiel Frankfurt; Münchner Kammerspiele;
Andreas Pohlmann; Ute Langkafel / Maifoto Berlin; Ballhaus Naunyn-
straße; Maxim Gorki Theater; Sandra Then-Friedrich; raumlaborberlin;
Matthias Horn; Christian Nielinger / www.nielinger.de; Ulrich Greb /
Schlosstheater Moers. Quotations from unpublished scripts are with kind
permission of the authors, Verlag der Autoren and Rowohlt Theater
Verlag.
The research presented here began as a Ph.D. funded by the Arts and
Humanities Research Council (UK) and also benefitted significantly from
additional funding for research trips in Germany provided by the DAAD
(Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst) and the AGS (Association for
German Studies, UK). The research and writing of that thesis would
not have been possible without this financial support. Thanks also go
to my Doktormütter Laura Bradley and Frauke Matthes—I am extremely
grateful to them both for guiding me so expertly, so elegantly, and so
very patiently through the Ph.D.. Special thanks also go to my examiners,
Margaret Littler, Moray McGowan and Peter Davies for their feedback,
to Sarah Colvin for encouragement to do postgrad study, and to Izzy
Madgwick, who, during our Erasmus year in Heidelberg, took me both
to the theatre for the first time and to a class on Interkulturelle German-
istik—opportunities which would not have been possible for me without
the Erasmus scheme the UK may soon leave.
In writing the thesis which led to this book, the University of Edin-
burgh German department and the LLC postgraduate community were
a constant source of stimulation and support, particularly Muireann
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
xv
List of Figures
xvii
xviii LIST OF FIGURES
1 “Auf der Bühne findet eine Probe der ‘Butterfly’ statt, die nach einiger Zeit durch
den Ruf ‘Pause’ abgebrochen wird. Alle gehen in die Kantine. […] Kelkari in Madame-
Butterfly-Maske, Perücke und Kostüm bohnert mit einer Bohnermaschine die Bühne.”
2 “Alamania” is a slightly distorted spelling of “Almanya”, the Turkish word for
“Germany”. Keloğlan is a character from Turkish children’s literature.
the 1990s. Nine years later, as the reunified Germany formally acknowl-
edges itself as a country of immigration, the play script finds its first
full production:
Apart from when she gets her hands dirty performing work useful to
the broader production, the character Kelkari is unable to find space on
stage as artist in Germany: her fate appears to presage that of the play she
appears in. While part of the archive of political theatre which spans the
former East and West German states as script, as performance this play
has long to wait to find its way in between other, more canonical, spec-
tacles. As Berlin-based actor and theatre organiser Mürtüz Yolcu notes
sardonically: “the Turk did not come to theatre to play theatre, after all”
(quoted in Boran 2004: 79).4
3 “Störe ich Sie, wenn ich hier bohnere? Ach, ich bin die Putzfrau, was soll ich denn
sonst tun, wenn ich hier nicht putze. Ach, in meinem Land war ich Opernsängerin. Ach,
mit dieser Perücke und Maske habe ich die Madame Butterfly gesungen.”
4 “schließlich ist der Türke ja auch nicht nach Deutschland gekommen, um Theater zu
spielen.”
5 The name is drawn from the Turkish for “fairy” and “girl”.
PRELUDE: SCENES FROM THE NEW GERMANY 3
A few months pass in both timelines and this same daughter is on stage,
transformed via a new actress and some in-house additions to the script,
at the Ballhaus Naunynstraße theatre in Berlin Kreuzberg,7 in a produc-
tion directed by Michael Ronen. Swinging high above the audience on a
trapeze, she declares “I want respect, I want recognition, I want applause!
For my abilities! For the thing I can really do! Acting! […] You think you
have paid for the show and can expect a performance? […] I shit on your
theatre tickets” (Ronen 2011).8 Refusing to reinforce the daily reality in
the mode of consumable spectacle, this agile artiste scatters scatological
scorn on iconicity, demanding acknowledgement of her playful skill both
within and beyond the world of the play.
6 “auf einer europäischen Bühne ist eine türkische Frau eine türkische Frau und eine
türkische Frau ist eine Putzfrau. Das ist die tägliche Realität und am Theater wird es
nächtliche Realität.”
7 Kreuzberg is well-known as a “Turkish” district in Berlin. The place of the Ballhaus
Naunynstraße within the theatrical landscape of Berlin will be outlined in more detail
in the chapter “The ‘Neo-Muslima’ Enters the Scene: Zaimoglu/Senkel’s Black Virgins
(2006) and the Postmigrant Theatre”.
8 “Ich will Respekt, ich will Anerkennung, ich will Applaus! Für meine Fähigkeiten! Für
das, was ich wirklich kann! Schauspielern! […] Ihr denkt, ihr habt für die Show bezahlt
und erwartet eine Leistung? […] Ich scheiße auf eure Eintrittskarten.”
9 The place of the HAU within the theatrical landscape of Berlin will be outlined in
the chapter on “Zaimoglu/Senkel’s Black Virgins (2006) and the Postmigrant Theatre”.
4 L. STEWART
What kind of cheap game am I playing here? I do know that I’m pitting
impertinence against assumption. You think you know how I am and I
address you to prove the opposite – to leave a really vulgar impression.
But that is really how I am and everything is true. Almost everything is
true.10 (Zaimoglu and Senkel 2006, 37)
10 “Was treibe ich hier für ein billiges Spiel? Ich weiss [sic] doch, dass ich Zumutung
gegen Vermutung setze. Ihr glaubt zu wissen, wie ich bin[,] und ich rede dagegen an
– um einen richtig vulgären Eindruck zu hinterlassen. Aber ich bin tatsächlich so und
alles ist wahr. Fast alles ist wahr.”
11 “Dass man diese Frauen nicht mal als Schauspielerinnen wahrgenommen hat, das war
für mich [das Verrückte].”
PRELUDE: SCENES FROM THE NEW GERMANY 5
HASAN: Innallec
SONIA: Intellect.
HASAN: Innallec
SONIA Intellect. Who’s supposed to believe that you’re not apes
when you can’t even pronounce this word correctly: Intellect.
(Erpulat and Hillje [2010] 2014, 27)12
HASAN: And I’ll play Franz. I’m Franz and I’ll stay Franz…
“I have every right to be angry at nature. Why did nature give me this
ugliness? These Hottentot’s eyes?”
What do you see in me? An actor or a Kanake?13 Still?
[…] We act. But what’s going to happen to me when this is over?
Become an established secondary-school teacher like you Miss Kelich?
A real model Kanake?
Or commit an honor killing on a TV show. Hmm, sorry, we’ve reached
our capacity for model Kanakes, the role of the Kanake inspector on the
detective show has already been filled.
How many model Kanakes will our country tolerate anyway?14 (Erpulat
and Hillje [2010] 2014, 67–68)
Via the character of Hasan, a critique of the violence which has often been
at work in policies of social and cultural integration in Germany becomes
connected to a critique of the career opportunities for the actor who plays
him. The play this scene takes place in, Crazy Blood (Verrücktes Blut ), is
live-streamed during the 2011 Berliner Theatertreffen onto the screens
of the Sony-centre, a building built in the space formerly occupied by
the Berlin wall. This critique becomes briefly situated at the literal and
symbolic centre of the post-unification Berlin Republic.
Making theatre with my background […]. That means that many people
really do see me as a Turk rather than as a director[…]. That means that
when I thematise a love story, for example, it tends to be pigeon-holed as
a migration story. And it means that […] when I send this actor or the
other on stage – black-haired, black-eyes – and I let them run riot in some
way, […] it is immediately understood as authentic.15 (Linders et al. 2011;
my transcription & translation)
15 “mit meinem Hintergrund Theater zu machen. […] Das bedeutet, dass viele Leute
in mir tatsächlich eher einen Türken sehen als Regisseur. […] Das bedeutet, wenn ich
irgendwie eine Liebesgeschichte thematisiere, es eher als Migrationsgeschichte eingeordnet
wird. […] Und das bedeutet […], wenn ich irgendwelche Schauspieler auf die Bühne
schicke, schwarz-haarig, schwarz-augig, und ich [sie] irgendwelche Randale machen lasse
[…], [es] sofort als authentisch begriffen wird.”
PRELUDE: SCENES FROM THE NEW GERMANY 7
yourself. Therefore, no, things are not getting better. On the contrary, the
better things get, the worse they are. (Kiyak 2019)16
What changed between the failed dreams of the fictional Kelkari and the
establishment of Kiyak’s dream theatre? Which battles were fought by
and around theatre practitioners with a background of migration? How
do the stresses and ambivalences Kiyak relates here map onto and inter-
vene in shifts in the self-understanding of Germany as cultural political
entity? Which new realities have been scripted in the theatrical sphere—in
the imaginations of playwrights, readers, audience members; in the enact-
ment and direction of such scripts on stage; in the performance of new
institutional cultural politics?
This book aims to respond to the questions raised by these scenes—
which thematise Turkish-German discontent with the on- and off-
stage roles migrantised theatre practitioners have been asked to play in
Germany—but also to the gaps which exist between these scenes. It does
so from the perspective of a researcher based in another country, the UK,
where different migration histories and cultural politics have formed the
dominant norms and built their own blind spots: my hope is that looking
to the German context here also helps us look to ourselves anew. As in
this prelude, this distance both makes possible and limits the dialogue
with cultural practice throughout the book. This book is also written by
an individual who has not been subject to the migrantized misrecogni-
tion the scenes above register,17 but who was struck by this work, and
16 “Trotzdem kann ich die Frage, ob etwas – aus meiner Sicht – besser oder schlechter
wird, nicht recht beantworten. Denn ich finde, dass sich allein in den vergangenen zwanzig
Jahren in Deutschland ein großer Fortschritt vollzogen hat. Gleichzeitig war es auch sehr
anstrengend und hat einen hohen Preis gekostet. Auch war nie Zeit, ein paar Jahre
innezuhalten und die Errungenschaften zu genießen. Es ist ja immer alles Kampf […]
Dieses Theater ist wirklich das Theater meiner Träume. Wer kann von sich behaupten,
dass sich seine kulturpolitische Forderung innerhalb von nur wenigen Jahren erfüllt hat?
[…] Aber – und das ist eben die andere Seite – diese Institution wird ständig bedroht,
kann sich nicht nur auf seine Kunst konzentrieren, sondern muss sich und seine Existenz
immer wieder rechtfertigen. Das ist eine deutlich andere Form des Theatermachens als
in Stuttgart, Frankfurt oder Wien. Es macht nämlich einen Unterschied, ob man als
Theatermacher für jemanden Dritten Position bezieht oder immer auch für sich selbst.
Deshalb, nein, es wird nicht besser. Im Gegenteil, je besser es wird, desto schlechter wird
es.”
17 Having moved around a lot as a child I grew up with the “wrong” accent, an
English accent in Scotland. While what my tongue said about me to others often didn’t
PRELUDE: SCENES FROM THE NEW GERMANY 9
then stuck to it in her own. I rehash the scenes in written form and in an
academic context in the hope that this secondary engagement continues
to draw attention to the important work of the real experts, the prac-
titioners and playwrights at the heart of this study, after the theatrical
moment has passed.
Works Cited
Boran, Erol M. 2004. “Eine Geschichte des türkisch-deutschen Theaters und
Kabaretts.” PhD diss, Ohio State University. Accessed May 1, 2010. http://
etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi?osu1095620178.
Çelik, Neco. 2012. Personal Interview. Berlin, May 23.
El-Tayeb, Fatima. 2016. Undeutsch: Die Konstruktion des Anderen in der
postmigrantischen Gesellschaft. Bielefeld: transcript.
Erpulat, Nurkan, and Hillje, Jens. [2010] 2014. “Crazy Blood.” Translated by
Priscilla Layne. The Mercurian 5 (1): 8–68.
Kiyak, Mely. 2019. “Je besser es wird, desto schlechter wird es.” Kiyaks
Theaterkolumne. http://kolumne.gorki.de/kolumne-101/.
Linders, Jan, Nurkan Erpulat, Jens Hillje, Tuğsal Moğul, and Aljoscha Begrich.
2011. “Jenseits von Identität – Postmigrantische Kultur: Diskussion mit
Autoren und Theatermachern.” Unpublished audiovisual recording of public
discussion at Heidelberger Stückemarkt, Heidelberg, June 4. Accessed thanks
to Jenny Flügge/Heidelberger Stückemarkt.
Özdamar, Emine Sevgi. 1991. Keloglan in Alamania Oder die Versöhnung von
Schwein und Lamm. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag der Autoren. Reprinted in
Die deutsche Bühne, 71 (10) (2000): 3–37.
Özdamar, Emine Sevgi. 2010. “Perikızı.” In Theater Theater: Odyssee Europa,
aktuelle Stücke 20/10, edited by RUHR, et al., 271–333. Fischer: Frankfurt
am Main.
Ronen, Michael (dir.). 2011. Perikızı. Written by Emine Sevgi Özdamar. Adapted
by Michael Ronen and Tunçay Kulaoğlu. Unpublished Audiovisual Recording,
Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Berlin. Accessed thanks to Chantal Kohler/Ballhaus
Naunynstraße.
match my own lived experiences or senses of affiliation, the historical power relations
between England and Scotland are very different to those between Turkey and Germany
and neither structural nor racial discrimination have been part of my experience.
10 L. STEWART
In the wake of the so-called refugee crisis which peaked in 2015, a strong
association seems to be forming in English-language theatre scholar-
ship between German-language theatre and engagement with migration.1
However, little attention has been paid to the pre-history of often embat-
tled and marginalized work by earlier migrantized theatre practitioners in
the Federal Republic of Germany and their work in forging networks and
spaces within the German theatrical establishment.
Indeed, while “one of the lead actors in the drama of globalisation
in the twentieth century is the immigrant labourer” (Mani 2007, 50)—
classically exemplified through the figure of the Turkish guest worker in
Germany—this drama and the Turkish-German actor, playwright, director
or dramaturge long seemed notably absent from the actual theatrical
spaces of the Federal Republic. As late as 2004, Erol Boran, one of the few
scholars to have carried out detailed initial research in this area, argued
that theatre by Turkish-German actors, directors, ensembles and play-
wrights was left to take place on the margins of the theatre industry,
far from the national stages, mainstream audiences and critical atten-
tion (78). Since the mid-2000s, however, theatre by first-, second- and
third-generation Turkish-German artists has begun to make its mark,
slowly becoming a more consistent feature on Germany’s influential
state-subsidised stages.
In 2006, Black Virgins (Schwarze Jungfrauen), an initially contro-
versial play on Muslim female sexuality and political positions including
Islamic extremism, written by Turkish-German writer Feridun Zaimoglu
and his co-dramatist Günter Senkel, became the first play written and
directed by Turkish-German artists to be the main feature on the front
cover of the influential German theatre magazine Theater heute (Theatre
Today). In 2008, the Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin, opened as the coun-
try’s first forum for “postmigrant theatre”, creating an important space
for both established and emerging artists. Then, in 2011, Nurkan Erpulat
became the first Turkish-German director to be invited to present a
production at the prestigious annual theatre festival, the Berlin Theatertr-
effen, resulting in the live-streamed scenes outlined in the prelude to this
book. While the FRG officially accepted its role as a country of immigra-
tion in 2000, a decade later this shift appeared to be gradually effecting
substantial change within the state-subsidised theatrical landscape. This
study takes the relationship between theatre and migration in contempo-
rary Germany as its focus, and in doing so aims to draw further attention
to one vital aspect of this history: that of theatrical production arising
from scripts by German-language playwrights of Turkish origin.
Focusing on the fascinating fates of five plays by two Turkish-German
playwrights who are already well known for their award-winning prose
work—Emine Sevgi Özdamar and Feridun Zaimoglu, who writes for
the stage with Günter Senkel—this study asks where, when, why and
how plays engaging with the reality of Germany as a country of immi-
gration have been performed. Large-scale immigration to the FRG in
the twentieth and twenty-first century has occurred from a variety of
contexts including Turkey, Italy, Morocco, Vietnam and the former
USSR: at the last census, almost one in four people living in Germany
today were considered to have what is termed there a “Migrationshin-
tergrund” or “background of migration” (Bundeszentrale für politische
Bildung 2019), and the FRG is home to ca. 2.8 million residents of
Turkish origin (Harper 2011, 21). National discussions of citizenship,
INTRODUCTION: TURKISH-GERMAN SCRIPTS OF POSTMIGRATION 13
In these years [the early 2000s] I first came across the possibility of using
this term in connection with Anglo-Saxon literary studies, when I read
In the literary sphere, both authors are also known for the “performative”
and disruptive nature of their writing. Özdamar’s training and work as
a theatre practitioner in both Turkey and Germany are key subjects in
the semi-autobiographical novels and short stories for which she is best
known.5 This is reflected in a focus on the role of mimicry and theatrical
intertexts in the reception of her prose work.6 Similarly, Zaimoglu’s
almost legendary reading tours of his first prose success Kanak Sprak and
his frequent and energetic media appearances have also been the impetus
for many readings of his novels, his prose collections and his authorial
persona, as performative (cf. Cheesman and Yeşilada 2012, 4; Minnaard
2003; Schmidt 2008). While the question of narration after migration led
4 “Auf die Möglichkeit der Anwendung dieses Begriffs kam ich in diesen Jahren erst-
mals im Zusammenhang mit angelsächsischer Literaturforschung, als ich ein Interview
las, indem in einem Seminar der Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft die Frage erörtert
wurde, ob die Literatur von Zaimoǧlu im Vergleich zu Özdamar und anderen der ersten
Generation, als Literatur ‘nach der Migration’ aufgefasst werden könnte. Mit dieser Frage
des Schreibens, des Erzählens ‘nach der Migration’ legte sich in meinem Selbst- und
Kunstverständnis ein entscheidender Hebel um.” The original German uses the imagery
of a lever shifting, highlighting more strongly the concept as tool for changing understand-
ings and gaining leverage. Kevin Robins and Asu Aksoy also highlight both Langhoff and
Özdamar as artists whose work is exemplary of the “postmigrant perspective” on transna-
tionalism and the “enlargement of social and cultural meaning in the European context”
(158), which they argue is also present in or characteristic of the reflections of their inter-
view partners and focus groups: people of Turkish origin living in London and Berlin
who are not artists by profession (see Robins and Aksoy 2016, 163–70).
5 This is particularly the case with the semi-autobiographical novels The Bridge of the
Golden Horn (2007; Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn 1998) and Strange Stars Stare at the
Earth (Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde 2003), in which the protagonist “Sevgi” trains
as an actress and works at the Volksbühne. For an analysis of the semi-autobiographical
nature of these works, see, for example, Boa (2006); Bradley (2007).
6 This point is also made by Karin Lornsen amongst others (2009, 205). I will discuss
aspects of this secondary literature in more detail in the later chapters “Scripts of Migra-
tion: Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Early Plays (1982–2000)” and “Celebrating the New
“Normal”? Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Perikızı and the Festival Context”, which focus on
Özdamar.
INTRODUCTION: TURKISH-GERMAN SCRIPTS OF POSTMIGRATION 15
7 Labour migration generally occurred from more rural areas of Turkey, with families
joining workers several years later as a result of family reunification measures. However,
following the worsening political situation in Turkey in the 1970s and the military putsch
in 1980, a number of Turkish intellectuals, artists, activists, and members of persecuted
16 L. STEWART
minorities also came to Germany seeking exile. Migration to and from Turkey and
Germany has also continued throughout this period, making it more sensible to speak
of Turkish migrations to Germany in the plural.
8 A form of jus soli was only introduced in the FRG in 2000. As a result, there still
exists a significant disjunction between birth and socialisation in Germany, and citizenship
of the country.
INTRODUCTION: TURKISH-GERMAN SCRIPTS OF POSTMIGRATION 17
can themselves help create new realities within and beyond the theatrical
sphere.
13 Other chapters focus on laying the theoretical and methodological groundwork of the
approach, outlining the history of theatrical practice in Turkey and on Turkish-Germany
comedic performance (stand-up and cabaret). Boran’s PhD was never published but was
made available freely online, and so has been drawn on by most scholars engaging with
Turkish-German theatre. This history as per Boran is also outlined in Nobrega (2014),
Sharifi (2017), Gezen (2018), for example. While there are necessarily limitations in the
analytical complexity and scope of the chapter on Turkish-German theatre history, it
remains a crucial source and has laid much factual groundwork.
14 “Türkische Theatergruppe”.
15 East Germany is not addressed here as the East German state did not engage in large-
scale recruitment from Turkey, although, as the outline of Özdamar’s theatrical biography
which follows shortly will show, East German theatre also has a role to play here.
20 L. STEWART
16 Boran names the Tiyatrom theatre in Berlin as the main exception here.
INTRODUCTION: TURKISH-GERMAN SCRIPTS OF POSTMIGRATION 21
[t]he identity of the work of dramatic art […] is not limited by a supposed
originary moment of publication, either theatrical or textual, but continu-
ally constructed in response to production by users as varied as theatrical
practitioners, spectators and readers, and publishers and editors. (Kidnie
2009, 32)
My research shows that this is no less the case with the work of
Özdamar and of Zaimoglu/Senkel. While some of the play-texts have
been published, others are held by the publishers and are only available
on request. As a result, often the only version of “the play” an audience
has access to is that given in performance. The image of these works will
thus be shaped as much by the advertising of these performances, the
cutting and interpretation of the play by the theatrical team involved in
producing it, and an audience member’s memories combined with the
record of the play provided in reviews. Equally, where the play-text is
published, it rarely corresponds directly to the often heavily edited script
which was used as the basis for a performance.
In highlighting the challenges which Turkish and Turkish-origin
theatre practitioners faced in Germany prior to 2004, Boran effectively
denaturalises the lack of prominent Turkish-German theatre and theatre
practitioners on German state stages at that time. This is a move since
17 While literary products such as books, magazines and online writings are produced
in particular contexts and systems, their multiple circulations mean that as both artefact
and artwork they can be considered to have independent afterlives.
22 L. STEWART
18 Similarly, Tom Cheesman and B. Venkat Mani consider the literary texts they deal
with, which in each case include literary works by Özdamar and Zaimoglu, to be “Turkish-
German” literature in the sense of literature whose production, themes or reception have
been marked by the specific historical situation of Turks in the FRG (cf. Cheesman 2007,
3). This focus does mean that this study is unable to engage systematically with the work
of other migrantized or racialized playwrights and practitioners in Germany, although the
new postmigrant theatre, while initiating from a network consisting of practitioners often
of Turkish origin, aims to a large degree to refuse essentialist divisions. However, here I
would direct readers to excellent new work coming from Jamele Watkins, Priscilla Layne
and Damani Partridge, which addresses contemporary Black performance in Germany,
including within the postmigrant theatre movement, as well as to Jonas Tinius’ extensive
recent work on Theater an der Ruhr.
19 Tudor uses the term “migratisation” rather than “migrantization”, to describe “(the
ascription of migration) as performative practice that repeatedly re-stages a sending-off
to an elsewhere and works in close interaction with racialisation” (2018, 1057). I use
the spelling “migrantization” here as this appears to be the more frequent usage in
the German and English-language contexts (see, for example, E. Yildiz 2014, 22), but
highlight Tudor’s discussion of the process and its relation to racialization as particularly
helpful.
INTRODUCTION: TURKISH-GERMAN SCRIPTS OF POSTMIGRATION 23
146; Gezen 2018, 12). The two terms, although not synonymous, are
also closely connected in Germany where it tends to be individuals of
colour whose migration background is made visible (El Tayeb 2016, 65;
146–47; Tudor 2018). In referring to “migrantized” artistic practitioners,
I therefore refer to artists whose work tends to be perceived or positioned
in relation to their ethnicity in ways which do not in fact acknowledge but
rather often elide difference and specificity of experience, to exclusionary
effect.20
The playwrights at the heart of this study, Özdamar and
Zaimoglu/Senkel, for example, not only have very different histories
of migration, but also of engagement with the theatrical sphere. Born
in 1946 in Malatya, Özdamar grew up in post-war Turkey, moving to
West Germany first temporarily aged nineteen as part of the early wave
of labour migration to the FRG.21 She then returned to Turkey where
she trained as an actress, before political violence there led her to move
to Berlin in the late 1970s. During her initial temporary two-year stay,
Özdamar, who had already developed an interest in acting through roles
in Turkey, came into contact with Vasıf Öngören, a Turkish director
studying at the Berliner Ensemble in East Berlin.22 While in Berlin,
20 Erol Yildiz also argues for the potential of “postmigration” as term that can work
against such othering: “The “postmigrant” thus understands itself as a polemical term
positioned against the “migrantization” and marginalization of people who see themselves
as an integral component of society, against a public discourse which treats migration
histories as specific historical exceptions and which differentiates between native normality
and problems which have migrated in” (“Das ‘Postmigrantische’ versteht sich dann als
ein Kampfbegriff gegen ‘Migrantisierung’ und Marginalisierung von Menschen, die sich
als integraler Bestandteil der Gesellschaft sehen, gegen einen öffentlichen Diskurs, der
Migrationsgeschichten weiterhin als spezifische historische Ausnahmeerscheinungen behan-
delt und in dem zwischen einheimischer Normalität und eingewanderten Problemen
unterschieden wird.” E. Yildiz 2014, 22).
21 Although Özdamar first came to Germany as a Gastarbeiterin, her reasons for doing
so were slightly different from the usually cited economic push-and-pull factors. She and
her mother were not getting on well and as a result of the bilateral recruitment agreements
“the door to Germany was suddenly open” ([d]ie Tür nach Deutschland war plötzlich
offen; Özdamar, quoted in von Saalfeld 1998, 165).
22 As Boran highlights, this encounter was rewritten in fictive form in Özdamar’s 1998
novel Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn (2004, 112–14). For more on Öngören, see Sten-
zaly (1984, 133), Sappelt, (2000, 67) and Gezen (2018). Öngören would later ground
the influential Birlik Tiyatrosu [‘Kollektiv-Theater’] in Turkey, a project he continued in
political exile in the 1980s in West Berlin and then Amsterdam. As Boran notes, Öngören
directed several of his own plays in West Berlin, including one in a German translation
24 L. STEWART
during this period (2004, 113). For Boran, “the example of Öngören additionally high-
lights […] how difficult it was at the start of the 1980s to get a foot in the door of
the German theatre scene as a Turkish theatre practitioner – even for someone with a
reputation like Öngören’s” (“das Beispiel Öngörens aber zudem verdeutlicht […] wie
schwierig es zu Beginn der achtziger Jahre war als türkischer Theatermacher – selbst mit
einem Renommee wie dem Öngörens – in der deutschen Theaterszene Fuß zu fassen”:
114).
23 Language and Culture Center/Lisan ve Kültür Merkezi T.C., Istanbul, directed
by Beklan Algan from 1966 <https://www.lcc.com.tr/>. Algan also worked at the
Schaubühne in West Berlin in the early 1980s. Gezen also locates this as the LCC.
24 During that time, Özdamar was registered as a postgraduate student studying theatre
in Paris.
25 See also the detailed overview of Özdamar’s theatrical training and career provided
by Boran (2004, 136–39). According to Boran, Özdamar was also briefly involved in
assisting Beklan Algan with the Türkische Ensemble der Schaubühne Berlin (2004, 105).
Boran highlights many practitioners’ view that “Turkish theatre could have had the unique
opportunity back then to establish itself in the German theatrical landscape”, but that in
practice the ensemble’s work was characterized by “quite bloody battles” between those
involved: (“Das türkische Theater […] hätte damals die einmalige Gelegenheit gehabt,
sich in der deutschen Theaterlandschaft zu etablieren”; “ganz blutige Kämpfe”; 2004,
103–04).
26 At Bochum, she is credited as directorial/dramaturgical assistant on productions such
as Marie.Woyzeck (15/11/1980), for example. As documented in the 1986 volume edited
by Beil et al. which documented the work of the Bochumer Ensemble, she also appeared
playing a Turkish cleaning woman in Lieber Georg (2/2/1980; 520), shared the role of
INTRODUCTION: TURKISH-GERMAN SCRIPTS OF POSTMIGRATION 25
theatrical work and for her film roles, in the early 1990s, she began
to publish prose fiction. In 1991, Özdamar was famously awarded the
Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the renowned prize for the best new German-
language writing, for an extract from her first novel, Das Leben ist eine
Karawanserei (Life is a Caravanserai) and she has since been the recipient
of a steady stream of literary prizes including Berlin’s prestigious Fontane
Prize for literature.27
As will be seen within this study, the syncretic work Özdamar was
engaged in was actively discouraged in German cultural policy in the
1980s,28 meaning that younger artists such as Zaimoglu were unlikely to
come into contact with the direct legacies of these methods.29 Instead,
Zaimoglu, who was born in Turkey but has lived in the FRG since early
childhood and associates himself more with the so-called “second” and
“third” generation was brought up in a Turkish-German working-class
household with little interest in the theatre. Known for his controversial
literary work, which had been part of a drive for more political recognition
of second- and third-generation migrants as Germans in the mid-1990s,
he began to gain popularity first as a prose writer and activist and then
took on the additional role of dramatist when invited to be writer in
residence for a number of theatres (cf. Solmaz 2010).
While initially invited as a solo playwright, Zaimoglu primarily writes
for the theatre with his co-dramatist and friend, Günter Senkel. Senkel,
who appears to have no personal experience of migration, runs a book-
shop in Kiel, in North Germany, in addition to joining Zaimoglu in his
Lydia Antonowa with Gabriele Gysi in Karge and Langhoff’s production of Brecht’s The
Mother (Die Mutter 2/10/1983; 594), and played a “Turkish singer” in Heiner Müller’s
own production of The Task (Der Auftrag 13/2/1982; 563). In 1984, Özdamar left
Bochum but continued her work as an actress in theatrical productions in Germany and
France (Lennartz 2000, 29). She is also known as “the Mother of all film Turks” for her
roles in films such as Hark Bohm’s Yasemin (1988) and Doris Dörrie’s Happy Birthday,
Turk (Happy Birthday, Türke 1992) (die Mutter aller Filmtürken; Laudenbach 2002).
27 See also Boran (2004, 136–37). On the reception of Life is a Caravanserai see
Jankowsky (1997); Gramling, (2010).
28 Loren Kruger identifies Özdamar as a playwright who has “begun to explore the
possibilities of syncretic theatre in Germany” (2004, 327–28).
29 For a detailed overview of Turkish-German theatre in this period, see Boran (2004,
75–200). On the negative effects of cultural policy on Turkish-German theatre, see also
Sharifi (2011, 36).
26 L. STEWART
I am the extremist, I’m responsible for the language and the ideas. I slip
into the roles. My tasks are feelings and affects. Günter is the technician
who considers: the affects, ideas, and the language – do they work?! Does
the story function?! (Solmaz 2010, n. pag.)31
which these distinctly developed ways of working are coming together and
interacting further. The Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin, is an important
theatre to name here. As will be seen throughout the chapters to come,
the Ballhaus is an institution which has functioned to bring together
those who have long been active in the Turkish-German independent
theatre scene with theatre practitioners experienced within Germany’s
state-funded stage system, and with newer emerging practitioners.
In other parts of the country, and most particularly in the former West
Germany, such approaches have also increasingly being taken up by key
theatres in the state-funded theatrical landscape: references to particular
directors and theatres such as Schauspiel Köln and Karin Beier, or Schaus-
piel Hannover and Luk Perceval will therefore also recur throughout this
study. This marks a stark change from a previous reluctance to stage
stories of migration by or with migrantized artists within the Federal
Republic of Germany. The historical overview briefly sketched here high-
lights that the metonymic relationship between stage and state noted at
the beginning of this section thus also reflects a long existent lack of
acceptance of the Turkish presence in the FRG on an institutional level
and a hesitancy when it comes to offering migrantized playwrights, actors
and directors a stake in the theatrical imaginary.
34 A range of both Zaimoglu/Senkel and Özdamar’s theatrical work has begun to attract
critical attention from scholars. However, this has thus far resulted in several separate arti-
cles rather than a broader overview and interest has mainly stemmed from scholars familiar
with their prose writing. With the exception of Zaimoglu/Senkel’s Black Virgins , which
has been the focus of some performance analysis, analysis of their plays in production, or
as theatrical events, is largely absent. Those analyses of Özdamar’s theatrical work which
do exist, for example, tend to be brief, embedded in a wider discussion of her other work
or of a broader concept, and based primarily on a reading of the dramatic text, rather
than the corresponding performance texts.
28 L. STEWART
35 Nora Haakh also has a book forthcoming on postmigrant theatre which readers can
look forward to.
36 In this study, Gezen uses an engagement with Özdamar’s theatrical background to
read her literary work but not her theatre plays.
INTRODUCTION: TURKISH-GERMAN SCRIPTS OF POSTMIGRATION 29
37 Detailed research had previously been done on events such as the annual Karneval
der Kulturen in Berlin, for example (see Sieg 2008, 321–22).
38 “Theater, Literatur, Musik: Gastarbeiterkultur – Kultur, die keiner haben will.”
39 Thus, Hannah Voss, whose 2014 book explores “the reflection of ethnic iden-
tity(ascriptions) in contemporary German theatre” explicitly concentrates “solely on the
aesthetic product, that is the theatre production”, arguing that this focus is due “amongst
other things, due to material available to me” (“allein auf das ästhetische Produkt, sprich
auf die Theateraufführung”; dies “ist under anderem auch dem mir vorliegenden Material
geschuldet”; 2014, 22).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Smilax medica Schl. ssabarīna. 'uschbe (C. Drog. Forsk.)
(Wurzel)
Sodada decidua F. = Capparis Sodada R.Br.
Solanum aethiopicum L. qoūta. qūta (C.), bedingān-el-qūta
(Nilt. C.)
Solanum coagulans F. kaderānbes (Ass.)
Solanum Gilo Raddi uadda (C.)
Solanum Lycopersicum = Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.
L.
Solanum Melongena L. bedingān (Nilt. C. Al.)
Solanum nigrum L. ⎱ 'eneb-ed-dīb (Nilt.), banadūra (C., el-
Solanum villosum Lam. ⎰ Ar. A.)
Z
Zea Mays L. ddura-schāmi (Nilt.) 'ēsch-er-rīf (Ssud.
arab.)
Zilla myagroides F. ssilla. ssille (ar. W. M. Forsk.),
ssirr. ssirrāja (Machssama A.)
Zingiber officinale Rosc. sensebīl (C. S.), sangabīl (C. Drog.
(Rhizom.) Fig.)
Ziziphus Spina-Christi ssidr (ar. W. M., Ssudan), nabq (Nilt.
W. C. Ob. A.)
Ziziphus vulgaris Lam. 'ennāb (Nilt. Al.)
Zollikoferia angustifolia sslī. sslībet-el-gemāl (el-Ar. A.)
Cass.
Zollikoferia glomerata B. hhudān (O. A.), hhūui (ar. W. W.),
hhūuet-el-kilāb (ar. W. Kl.), hufēfa (ar.
W. Abde.),
'adhīd (ar. W. Mterat-Arab.)
Zollikoferia mucronata B. murrēre-entīje (ar. W. S.), haudān (ar.
W. Ehrenberg)
Zollikoferia nudicaulis B. hhaue (C.), húuā (in Zentral-Arabien
nach Hess.),
lussēq (Nilt. O. A.), chudān (Mar.)
Zollikoferia spinosa B. kabād (ar. W. M.), kebbād (ar. W. W.,
Forsk.)
Zozimia absinthifolia 'ámmischi (ar. W. M.), kalth (ar. W.,
D.C. Sinai)
Zygophyllum album L. chorēssah (Brll. A.), chrēssi (ar. W.
Forsk.), ttarttīr (Isth. A.),
qillām. qullām (Al., el-Ar. A.), belbel.
bauual (Unt. A.)
Zygophyllum coccineum !rottrētt (ar. W. M.), belbel (lib. W.),
L.
ttarttīr (ar. W. Mterat-Arab.)
(die Frucht) kemūn-karamāni (C. Drog., S., Forsk.)
Zygophyllum buss-el-kelbe (ar. W. M.)
decumbens D.
Zygophyllum simplex L. qármal (ar. W. M.), gármal (ar. W. C.)
NACHTRÄGE.
Aconitum ferox S. gídua (C. Drog. Schmidt.)
Agavicaceae sp. 'ēsch-el-ghorāb (Nilt. S.)
Alternanthera sessilis lūq. (Faraskur S.)
R.Br.
Brassica oleracea L. var. abu-sunqba (C. Sickenberger)
gongylodes L.
Ceratophyllum hhamūl-el-moije (Faraskur S.)
muricatum Cham.
Citrus Bergamia Risso. limūn-gargamūn (C. Sickenberger)
Clematis flammula L. qamītss-bint-el-mālek (C.
Sickenberger)
Eclipta erecta L. ssuēdi (Faraskur S.)
Euphorbia geniculata ⎰ leben-el-kelb (Unt. A. S.)
Ort. ⎱
lebēne-er-rukabīe (Dam.
Sickenberger, C.)
Magnolia grandiflora L. manolia (C. Sickenberger)
Gundelia Tournefortii L. 'akkūb (C. Markt, Syr.)
Hibiscus Trionum L. chárrua (Faraskur S.)
Hypecoum aegyptiacum hhalūq-et-tomātem (el-Ar.
Asch. Sf. Sickenberger)
Lippia nodiflora Rich. qūbe (Faraskur S.)
Melaleuca ericifolia Sm. miralai (C. Sickenberger)
Mimosa pudica L. mistaschīje (C. Sickenberger)
Monstera deliciosa jurdurūm (C. Sandwith)
Liebm.
Nigella sativa L. kemūn-assuad (Nilt. Sickenberger)
Phaseolus vulgaris L. fatssūlia (C. Sickenberger, S.)
Pistia Stratiotes L. soqēm (Faraskur, Osman-Ghaleb-Bey.
S.
Plantago major L. v. β. arémbe (Dam. Sickenberger)
crassipes Sickb.
Reseda odorata L. hhennet-ifrengi (C.)
Salix babylonica L. tssaftssāf-schar-el-bint (Unt. Aeg. S.)
Silybum Marianum schōk-bulti (Mansura S.)
Gaertn.
Sphaeranthus hhabb-el-bahhr (Mansura S.)
suaveolens D.C.
Terfezia Leonis Sal. tartúth (Mar.)
[9]Mit diesem Namen wird auf der Insel Dscherba Reseda
odorata L. bezeichnet.
ARABISCH-LATEINISCHER TEIL.
a' b ch d dd dh
ا ب خ د ض ذ
g g
d e' f gh
د ا ف dsch غdsch(e)
ج ج
h hh ij k l m
ه ح ي ك ل م
n o' q r s sch
ن ا ق ر ز ش
ss t th tss tt u
س ت ث ص ط و
NACHTRAG
a'
ا
⎰ Erodium ciconium W.
abu-maschfa (Mar. A.)
⎱ Erodium gruinum W.
abu-'nām (Nilt.) ⎱
Papaver somniferum L.
abu'n-nōm (Nilt.) ⎰
b
ب
babanūss (C.) Dalbergia Melanoxylon G. P. R.
babās. babāja (C.) Papaya vulgaris D.C.
babūneg (C. Drog. Matricaria Chamomilla L.
Hndl.)
babūneg (ar. W.) Achillea fragrantissima Sz.B.
babūness (C. Drog. Fig.) Anthemis nobilis L. (Blüte)
babungi (Ros. Drog. Matricaria Chamomilla L.
Hndl., A.)
!bācher (Nilt.) Vicia narbonensis L.
bachragūn-el-ghūl (Unt. Bromus patulus Mert. Koch.
A. A.)
ba'etherān (ar. W. M.) Artemisia judaica L.
bakkef (O. A.) Cardiospermum halicacabum L.
balessan (C. Forsk.) Momordica balsamina L.
balessān. balassēm (C. Commiphora opobalsamum Engl.
Drog. Forsk., S.) (Saft)
balōtt (C. Drog. Forsk.) Quercus infectoria Ol. (Gallen)
balssāme (C. Forsk.) Chrysanthemum Balsamita B. var.
tanacetoides B.
balssamita (C.) Momordica balsamina L.
bāmija (Nilt.) Hibiscus esculentus L.
bān (ar. W. M.) Moringa arabica Pers. (der Same)
⎰ Solanum nigrum L.
banadūra (C., el-Ar. A.)
⎱ Solanum villosum Lam.