FringeReview UK 2024
The EU Killed My Dad
Footprints Festival, Jermyn Street Theatre co-produced with Woven Voices
Genre: Comedic, Drama, Fringe Theatre, Historical, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Political, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: Jermyn Street Theatre
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Jermyn Street Theatre’s Footprints Festival of six new plays continues with a five-hander which won the Woven Voices prize last year: Aaron Kilercioglu’s The EU Killed My Dad till February 6th directed by Georgia Green. A theatrical firecracker, it’s one of the finest, so far the only one published (by Methuen Bloomsbury).
Do see this, preferably alongside its sometime co-runner The Beautiful Future is Coming. A dizzying theatrical gem.
Written by Aaron Kilercioglu and Directed by Georgia Green, Designer Cory Shipp, Lighting Designer Lucia Sanchez Roldan, Sound Designer Jasmine Kent Rodgman, Movement Director Adi Gortler, Stage Manager Jamie Kubisch-Wiles
Festival Designer Natalie Johnson, Festival Lighting Designer Laura Howard
PR David Burns, Marketing/Production Photography Bill Knight, Programme Design Ciaran Walsh at CIWA, Producer Footprints Festival.
Till February 6th
Review
Jermyn Street Theatre’s Footprints Festival of six new plays continues with a five-hander which won the Woven Voices prize last year: Aaron Kilercioglu’s The EU Killed My Dad till February 6th directed by Georgia Green. A theatrical firecracker, it’s one of the finest, so far the only one published (by Methuen Bloomsbury).
There’s a reason for the refrain: “Who do you blame? The man, the gun, or politics?” as British police officer Berker travels to Turkey in July 2016 to meet his estranged father. It’s too late: his half-sister Elif informs him their Baba died the day before: from a rubber bullet.
Whodunnit? And why, seven years on in 2023, do two Turkish investigators keep pressing now resident Berker (Luca Kamleh Chapman) for answers. Informally, here, or they can make it very formal and charge him. For instance, he travelled a day earlier they assert. Is Berker who he seems? He knows the procedure then.
It’s a fast-paced 70 minutes with a crackling script, in itself clear as to time-shifts that don’t always translate into the dramaturgy. Here, a brief projection of dates above might in some 2016/2023 switches clarify action. Cory Shipp’s set builds on Natalie Johnson’s Festival one, with boxes and small filing cabinets opening with flowers as chief building blocks and reveals. And there’s singular props and costumes.
Lit in a brilliant counterpoint by Lucia Sanchez Roldan with Jasmine Kent Rodgman’s sound, it’s a sheerly theatrical experience, dipping in and out of time zones. Kilercioglu’s been commissioned for film now, but he’ll never have such fun as here.
And that falls on bemused Berker: Kamleh Chapman makes of his articulate hero a quizzical, equivocal, ultimately honest protagonist as he fights through thickets of past with four others multi-roling it for him.
Mustafa (Tiran Aakel – also Investigator 2) is no ideal father. Arriving in the UK in 1971, without papers, he meets and falls for Janice (Rosie Hilal, also a kind doctor as Berker lands, and Bahriye, Mustafa’s second estranged wife). After adventures in a veggie-kebab shop Mustafa deserts Janice and 18-month-old Berker to fight for democracy in Turkey, can never return. There he starts a new family with Bahriye comprising daughter Elif (Dilek Sengül) who joins the army, and whose partner Umut (Ojan Genc, also Investigator 1) wears CIA shades.
Isn’t that enough resentment? Not only that, Mustafa thought the EU’s helmed by weird beings (like Mrs Thatcher) who aren’t what they seem. The play though touches on the attempted military coup of 2016 to “restore democracy”, for once opposed by the people who support Erdogan. They might have regretted their choice, but Mustafa pays with his life. Whose side was he on?
As he probes the death of Mustafa in five tableaux, Berker literally digs for truth about his roots, involving purple crocuses and caring for the family garden – which allows him another layer: chance to grieve for a man he’ll never know.
That he might accidentally unravel a conspiracy that goes to the heart of global politics involving EU gun imports and a suite of filing cabinets (exploding paper and pop-up flower borders) is neither here nor there.
Aakel switching between Turkish-inflected English and fluent English (as if speaking Turkish) once in Turkey is also the sardonic Investigator, recalling alongside Genc a mild dose of The Pillowman. His Mustafa is by turns haplessly romantic, touchingly but infuriatingly fixated on fighting for democracy, and caught up in just what that means in Turkey in 2016 and 2023. His is a layered, poignant performance, played against the equally conflicted Kamleh Chapman
There’s fine support from Sengül Elif as warm but guarded and exasperated half-sister with crucial secrets, Hilal moving from two wronged wives to a compassionate doctor with a lollipop; and the lean hunger of Genc’s interrogator, and silent boyfriend – and a blandly imperialist American corporal.
Small issues of clarity aside (single years occasionally flashed up will resolve that) this is a superbly-realised piece of theatrical storytelling, with Adi Gortler’s movement making it a seamless ballet. Kilercioglu flash-forwards as well as invokes the past (is 2023 or 2016 the real centre of gravity?), with wit and humour to point ploss. As for stories and truth, “What else is there to do?” asks Elif.
Do see this, preferably alongside its sometime co-runner The Beautiful Future is Coming. A dizzying theatrical gem.
