March 27 World Theatre Day message released: 'Theatre reminds us of what we have not thought about'

With a joint decision made by the International Theatre Institute (ITI) Universities Turkey Representative and Head of the Bilkent University Theatre Department Jason Hale, and the ITI Turkey Representative Board of Directors (Turan Oflazoğlu, Engin Uludağ, Ayşe Emel Mesci, and Savaş Aykılıç), this year's World Theatre Day National Message was written by Tamer Levent, a director, theatre, cinema, and television actor who has worked for many years at the State Theatres.

The message titled 'Theatre, the Navigation of the Art of Living', written by Tamer Levent, is as follows:

"The human brain also becomes pregnant. But this pregnancy begins with a question of curiosity. Thoughts and resources are brought together. They are developed. If there is missing information, an attempt is made to reach it. When everything matures at the level of an idea, it is time for birth. Pregnancy is the process, the born baby is the product. It also needs to grow and develop. Art is the never-ending development of the continuity of process and product. Just like the history and future of humanity...

Drama is the internal and external action of human beings. It is the situations they experience through this action. That is, thought and its reflection outward. In ages when humanity was speechless, they understood each other through drama. They improvised situations, communicated through sound, imitation, and bodily expressions.

This communication provided them with the experiences and knowledge that thought needed. The human, who initially acted for themselves, later became an audience in theatre spaces. In fact, what was staged in the theatre was their own story. They are the real actors of the stage of life, the experiencers. Those on stage who hold a mirror to their lives are the guides who invite them on the journey of the art of living.

On the stage of life, there is no rote learning as in education and training systems. Theatre actors, while interpreting situations, must offer interpretations with which the experiencers can empathize. They must use selected, studied, and convincing gestures that stimulate awareness, along with the reasons and whys of behaviors."

'IT CAUSES LIFE TO DEVELOP'

"Theatre takes its material from society. After processing it in its own laboratory, it presents it back to the same society. It activates the process and product formula. It causes life to change and develop. This endless motion is realized through the careful selection and study of the situations of every age. Actors must be able to select the dramas of success and failure and stimulate questioning with their credibility.

They must meticulously consider the philosophy, psychology, sociology, and all the characteristics of the art of thought that are always in our lives. Theatre must share the art of carefully holding a mirror to situations every time. Only then can it ensure that the experiencers join it and empathize with it. That they establish a partnership of thought that turns information into practice. That they laugh, cry, and applaud..."

'IT CREATES PROCESSES TO PRODUCE SOLUTIONS'

"Theatre reminds us of what we have not thought about and confronts us. It questions, without lecturing, the subjects we cannot integrate with our rote knowledge, religion, language, and race, or the reasons for which we do not question, within the commonality of being human. Theatre and the drama that is its leaven activate our thoughts. It causes us to notice the elements that prevent the art of life from developing and changing. These can be personal or global obstacles.

Humanity is now aware that the wars and child massacres created in this age are also staged. But did the human mind and drama that brought the world into existence not teach us to produce solutions in every period? The important thing is not to memorize information, but to develop thought and use it in practice. Theatre and drama make us realize this. It makes suggestions to formal education systems. It creates processes to examine and produce solutions to problems that exist in life and seem unsolvable.

Products whose processes and actors are not remembered do not create culture. Today, in the age we live in, we must re-evaluate the path we have taken, the values we have brought to life, and the roles we have undertaken. We must share experiences of being able to think about the future. We must not fall behind artificial intelligence in the reality of being able to question the bad, the ugly, and the wrong against the good, the beautiful, and the right.

Because today, as it was yesterday: 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.' That is, creatures that constantly create motion and creative processes...

Would a world without humans be more beautiful? Then there would be no theatre, and we would never have learned this!!! Theatre and the disciplines it encompasses are the navigation for the holistic artistic arrangement of human life. That is, the journey of the vision of 'yes to art'..."