INTERVIEW with “CURCUNA” TEAM (TOKAL THEATER CLUB)

Reporter 1: My dear teachers and friends it is a pleasure for us having you here.We’d like to know our theater club closer.Hope you enjoy our interview.Here comes the first question.

Reporter 1: Why do you want to take part in theater club?

Nevzat : Just words are not enough to express some thoughts, feelings and ideas. Sometimes, you have to go on stage, take a role and tell what you feel or think through that role. I didn't want to miss this opportunity.

Reporter 2: What is theater for you?

Student: I think theater is a reflection of the things we experience in our imagination. In other words, we try to throw out the world we have built in our inner world in some way, and try to throw out on stage what we normally cannot do.

Mr Öcal: I think theater is an effective art to express people's concerns, joy, feelings and thoughts to others in a very effective way.

Mr Çiçekli: I believe that what makes a human being is actually common sense and empathy. In order to gain common sense and empathy, a person needs to look at the world from a different perspective. It is very important to look at the world with different eyes, to go outside the window we live in, and to look at the world again with another eye. Therefore, I think theater is actually the most important genre that provides this opportunity to people.

Nevzat : My other life is my life inside me, that is, my life that other people don't know about and only appears on stage.

Reporter 1: Who is the actor you look up to?

Mr Öcal: I especially follow local artists in the theatre. Among the former actors who have passed away, I can say that Sadri Alaşık is the person I take as an example.

Nevzat : For me, my teachers Soner and Volkan.

Reporter 2: Which character do you want to play the most?

Student: I would like to play the bad character because the bad character is always more memorable.

Nevzat: I don't discriminate between characters, but I look at how a character makes people feel better on stage and how long it can leave a mark on the stage. So,I can't give a clear answer, but if I had to choose, I would choose the bad character.

Reporter 2: Do you have a favorite theater play? If so, what?

Mr Öcal: The last play by Kerem Alışık was "The Redemption of Slavery". I was simply amazed. It is a one-man play, but it is a play that I will never forget.

Mr Çiçekli: I am a man who finds it difficult when he is restricted a lot. There are many. The only option is really difficult for me, so I have a hard time naming just one. Explaining this through a single play is obviously not appropriate for my perspective on theatre. That's why the pleasure I get from each theater I watch or the impact it leaves on me is different. Therefore, many theater plays have been a source of inspiration for me. My heart does not allow me to sing a single theater play, so the answer is no.

Student: I agree with my teacher Mr Çiçek on this issue.

Reporter 1: Do you make a choice or do you play the given role without distinguishing?

Student: I play everything.

Nevzat: I can play any character, no matter how hard it is getting used to it at first.

Reporter 1: How did you become interested in theater?

Student: I love acting, being on stage is fun, that's why I started theater.

Nevzat: I love acting and taking on a different character. I've wanted to do this since I was little. When I met my teacher Mr Öcal, he explained it very well and it turned out as he described, I don't regret it, thanks to him.

Reporter 2: How many years have you been interested in theater?

Mr Öcal: This is my 18th year in the profession and I have been involved for 18 years. The first year I was appointed was in a village school. I can never forget it. It started with my students requesting a theater for April 23, the happiness in the students, the light in their eyes drew me into the theatre.

Mr Çiçekli: I have been actively involved in theater for about 20 years and I am involved in both acting and education because I love acting and directing gives me pleasure. I have worked in many places I have been so far. I do not see literature teaching as just giving lectures or giving information. Theater is a very important door for a person to truly develop socially. It is a pleasure to be able to enter through this door, to be aware of the door and to actually do something there. While I was in Ardahan, I started working with students who had never seen theater in Eastern Anatolia. It was special for me at that time to introduce them to theatre. Because the conditions were very bad and it was an incredibly introverted place. At a boarding school, we sometimes even played theater at night. We even participated in competitions etc. We came 2nd in the province. One of my students from that team wrote a play himself and we played the play he wrote and the reactions were so good that I enjoyed it very much.

Reporter 1: How many plays did you take part in?

Mr Çiçekli: I didn't count them, but I took part in many plays, sometimes I played them, sometimes I directed them, but the ones I liked the most were the plays that brought national and moral values.

Mr Öcal: I don't look at it as a number either, I see the work we put in, the applause we receive, as effort, I feel that acting gives more pleasure, especially at the directing stage.

Reporter 2: If you had one wish, what would you wish for?

Mr Çiçek: The first thing that comes to my mind is to be human, but I really wish I was human. I owe being truly sincere and really connecting to life to reading books. It may seem like an ordinary, boring, very unimportant answer that every teacher says, but sometimes all the secrets are in simplicity. My biggest wish is for all people to read the right books in the real sense and to be people who can be shaped according to the book they read and become a person who can expand their spiritual world. It is my greatest wish to see.

Mr Öcal: I speak on behalf of all humanity, I wish a world where there are happy people who keep up with technology that directs their lives and future with education, art and thought.

Student: I guess I'm just trying to do something, I'd like to get the results the way I want.

Nevzat : I would like to experience all the pleasures in my current life in the best way possible.

Reporter 1: What is your life motto?

Mr Öcal: Tolerance for now..

Mr Çiçekli: What is in the past is the past. In other words, if we think of the world as a tree, the real survival of a tree depends on its roots being solid and nourishing itself from its own roots. That is, it is not possible for a person who does not knead himself with his own culture to bear fruit and develop. So my motto is to hold tight to the roots of the nation I live in.

Student: Seizing the moment these days. be the moment.

Nevzat: Right time, right place and right person are most important to me.

Reporter 2: Does your team have a motto?

Mr Çiçekli: The name of the group is also our slogan, hence our slogan "Curcuna".

Reporter 1: Why is the name of the group "Curcuna"?

Mr Öcal: “Curcuna” means complicated, entertaining situation. While we were looking for a name 10 years ago, we named it "Curcuna" with the joint decision of Atakan Şahin, Sinem Esenköylü and Görkem Biçer, and this name opened the way for us.

Reporter 2: Thank you all for joining our interview,it’s been a great experience for us.

Theater Club Teachers: Soner Öcal & Volkan Çiçek

Theater Club Members: Nevzat Efe Atila& Rukiye S.Bozgüney

Reporters: Doğa Eylül Bozatik & Ece Özdemir