Kemal Tahir's 'Devlet Ana' meets the audience at the AKM

Ayşe Emel Mesci, the director of sold-out State Theater productions such as Kurban, Çığ, Kerbela, and Hamlet Makinesi, brings art lovers together in this production with Devlet Ana, one of Kemal Tahir's historical novels that won the 1968 Turkish Language Association Award, adapted for the stage by Osman Özkan.

The set design for this magnificent play, which features a large cast, is by Murat Gülmez, the costume design is by Gazal Erten, and the lighting design is by Yakup Çartık.

The music for the play was composed by Tuluyhan Uğurlu, and the choreography is also by Ayşe Emel Mesci.

THE SUBJECT OF DEVLET ANA

"Enemies tore us from our homeland and drove us before them... Two centuries ago, poking our backs with spearheads and swinging sharp swords over our heads, they made us migrants, nomads, and drove us here in droves to squeeze us in..."

"The country was in chaos, the state collapsed. The nation was fighting for survival; there was no support left from one hand to the other. We are holding on in a place where, if we stumble, we will fall to the bottom of hell."

A small frontier principality clinging to a piece of land surrounded by swamps on three sides... From that chaos, first a state and then a world empire will be born. But at the time the play takes place, nothing is certain yet.

Devlet Ana weaves together a murder story and the painful process of the Ottoman principality's step-by-step evolution into a state.

News Source: 12punto