Culture Minister Ertuğrul Günay
Turkey’s culture minister has denied claims that he threatened to shut down the country’s State Theater following an incident last week when the prime minister’s daughter left a play after allegedly being offended by an actor.
“The question that arises is: Does the government still have to support this institution? Does today’s Turkey need to have actors on staff?” Culture Minister Ertuğrul Günay asked on a TV show that aired on Habertürk late Thursday night.
After headlines Friday accused him of saying that “the State Theater could be shut down,” Günay told journalists that he never made such a statement, and that he was simply “in search of a new formula that would increase performance.”
In his comments both Thursday and Friday, Günay argued that half of the $100 million Turkish Liras spent each year on the State Theater could be given to private theaters and allow the flourishing of “theater stages everywhere.”
Speaking to NTV on Friday, the minister also suggested a new performance-based system could be implemented to update the current State Theater system created in the 1940s.
“Our goal is to introduce art to the people,” said Günay, who also criticized the actor who offended Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s daughter.
Actors, politicians respond
The minister’s response was fitting, as Günay had “gone down in our history as the culture minister that ordered a statue [in Kars] torn down” after the prime minister called it “freakish,” Muharrem İnce, the group deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, group deputy chairman Oktay Vural agreed with İnce that last week’s incident was only bring brought to the agenda because the audience member who was offended was Sümeyye Erdoğan, the prime minister’s daughter.
“At this rate, they’ll shut down universities because of the exam scandal,” Vural said, referring to the code discovered within the questions of the university entrance exam, or YGS, that gave away the answers to the national test.
“They have been praising the State Theater until now, but brought up shutting it down after this incident,” said Vural. “I guess the [culture] minister does not need culture.”
Turkey established the State Theater to join the ranks of other developed countries, a representative of theater employees told the Daily News, questioning whether or not this was the right time to bring up closing it down. “Of course private theaters need to be supported. But is Turkey ready to close the State Theater? And more importantly, is there a project prepared to replace it?” asked Tamer Levent, the chief of the State Theatre, Opera & Ballet Employees’ Foundation, or TOBAV.
“The incident was a personal reaction, and it does not make sense that it was turned into a political crisis. The culture minister should have been the person to defend the State Theater if someone mentioned shutting it down,” Levent said.
“I invite Sümeyye Erdoğan to have tea with me. This is a problem that can be solved through a simple conversation,” he added.
“Unrelated incidents are being connected together. How is the incident with Sümeyye Erdoğan related to the entire State Theater being shut down? The problem is with the play itself,” said Hami Çağdaş, the editor-in-chief of the Hürriyet Gösteri arts and culture magazine.
“Why are they bringing this up now, right before the elections? They had years to interfere with the play, but they don’t even have time to pass any laws now. It is a nod to the conservative voters,” he said.
“Criticizing art is normal. Anyone can state that they do not like a play, or an actor or a director. They can come out and say what they don’t like about it,” Çağdaş added. “But taking this path is wrong. This is just another form of censorship.”
How it all began
The controversy erupted after Sümeyye Erdoğan attended an April 8 performance of “Young Osman” and walked out of the theater after an actor in the play made eye contact with her and commented on her chewing gum.
“It is normal for a person to chew gum; who can interfere with that as long as they don’t blow bubbles?” asked Günay. “Besides, there is a reason why the stage is lit up and the audience is left in the dark. An actor should not look at the audience, but perform the play. If you include the audience in a play, then there is a serious problem with your perception of art.”
The actor in question has released a statement defending his actions while apologizing for inadvertently offending Sümeyye Erdoğan.
The incident was a misunderstanding, said actor Tolga Tuncer. “Every single time I have performed this play, I have made eye contact with the audience, and drawn them into the play,” Tuncer said, adding that he had no idea who the person chewing gum was.
In the very next scene, the soldiers who made witty remarks to the audience during the play’s interactive segment are harshly warned by “Young Osman” himself, Tuncer pointed out in his written statement.
Sümeyye Erdoğan has claimed on her Facebook page that the actor targeted her because she wears a headscarf, saying the implication was that women who wear headscarves were not welcome to watch plays.
An investigation has been launched into the incident, and Günay called Tuncer to his office to personally issue a warning.
State Theater actors will hold a protest Tuesday in front of the theater where the incident took place and will read a statement in a theatrical manner answering the criticism toward Tuncer.
* Göksel Bozkurt contributed to the story from Ankara