BEST LITTLE THEATRE IN LONDON
This is London, UK
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April 29 2008
High calibre: Greg Hicks in An Enemy of the People
Mehmet Ergen’s motto, if he has one, is probably: "Why not?" The
42-year-old Turkish director set out from Istanbul for London 20 years
ago, never doubting that a complete inability to speak English would
hamper his planned acting career. He ended up creating first Southwark
Playhouse and, after losing control of that venue, the Arcola Theatre
in Dalston. In each case he turned an empty industrial building into
an artistic destination defined by excellence and eclecticism, and
anticipated the regeneration of a neglected area. And now, he speaks
better English than I do.
Over eight years at the Arcola, as well as winning countless artistic
plaudits, he has secured funding and proper staffing levels ("we have
handrails and disabled lifts and everything now"), and the support of
local people (60 per cent of his audience, speaking 86 languages) for
whom he also provides youth and OAP groups, video workshops and so on.
Following on from his pioneering season of Turkish plays last
year, this June he will bring over several leading companies from
his homeland. "But we will probably only sign the deal in May —
in Turkey we only think one month ahead," he says.
His work at the Arcola has embraced themed German and Russian seasons,
collaborations with Oxford Stage Company and Out of Joint and a
revival — apt for this former sewing machine factory — of the rag
trade musical We Can Get It For You Wholesale, with a cast of 40.
Right now, Ergen is working to make the place carbon-neutral by
installing hydrogen fuel cell and solar technology, and preparing to
open Hannah Eidinow’s production of The Lady from the Sea, starring
Lia Williams. This is the follow-up to his own acclaimed staging
of An Enemy of the People with Greg Hicks, in a season of Ibsen
plays newly translated by leading playwrights and performed by a
high-calibre ensemble. Oh, and next month he opens Arcola Istanbul,
which will transfer productions to and from its London sister. Why not?
"I can’t help it," says Ergen. "I can’t walk past a derelict factory
without wanting to turn it into a theatre. I was paid quite well for
a couple of long-running shows in Istanbul last year, so I took the
lease for a year on a lorry assembly line built by Ford in the 1950s,
right in the middle of town."
He will open it with Rebecca Gilman’s Boy Gets Girl as part of
the Istanbul International Theatre Festival and hopes that this
stalker drama will shake things up. "We don’t have a tradition of
social-realist playwriting in Turkey," he says. "People are more
concerned with form than content, which needs to change: people need
to talk about things."
Such things, Ergen has said in the past, include taboo subjects
like homosexuality, terrorism and shameful events in his country’s
history such as the 1919 massacre of Turkey’s Armenian minority —
even though the notorious rule 310 outlaws "criticising Turkishness"
and has been used to mount prosecutions against novelists Orhan Pamuk
and Elif Shafak.
"Oh, you can get round that," says Ergen blithely. "You just have
one character criticising Turkey and another who beats him up for
doing it."
He remains fiercely proud of his home country, especially of the
secular, urban younger generation, which he believes will have
far greater sway over Turkey’s future than resurgent, rural Islamic
conservatism. When I ask if he considers himself a Muslim, he replies:
"Muslim? Nah, Marxist Leninist. I never cared for religion. But maybe
it’d help if I mentioned it in a letter — if I said to [National
Theatre director] Nick Hytner, Hey, you’ve never had a Muslim director
in this theatre, have me,’ it’d help me get a slot. Otherwise,
I wouldn’t mention it." He’s joking. I think.
Having always felt a bit of an outsider — he says no one was
interested in incorporating Middle Eastern or Mediterranean culture
into theatre before 9/11 — Ergen is now surprisingly close to the
mainstream. Yes, he says, he could probably get Hytner on the phone
if he wanted. And yes, given the proximity of Hackney to the 2012
Olympic site, he is talking to those planning the cultural Olympiad
alongside the games about involving the Arcola.
The theatre itself is now smarter as well as greener, without having
lost its appealing rough edges and "found space" mystique. Ergen is
negotiating with his landlords about extending into the upper part
of the building, giving the lowceilinged auditorium more height. Or,
if the owners won’t play ball, moving the Arcola to a bigger venue.
"It’s not about size or big star names," he says. "We are still part of
the middle range of 200 to 300-seat theatres, which keep the canon of
theatrical literature alive — Brecht, Ibsen, Tennessee Williams. But
as we have grown, people have come to expect certain standards from
us. And although we will never be as posh as the Almeida, we now pay
actors the same as they do."
Having conned people into believing he was a "famous Turkish director"
when he first arrived in London aged 20, Ergen went back to Istanbul
brandishing the three Peter Brook Empty Space awards he had won
at Southwark and the Arcola. "I was treated like some kind of hero
and given these massive revolving stages at the national theatres,
million-dollar budgets. I did a new musical I commissioned with 65
people in it, just because, having been successful in London, they
assumed I knew how to do these things. So when I came back here I said,
Right, we have to make some changes.’ "
With funding secured, the theatre now employs 11 people full-time,
including a production team who have taken over all the administrative
duties, and a bar manager (which means the bar now makes a profit
for the first time, unlike when Mehmet ran it). As artistic director,
he himself now earns a basic wage for the first time in his career:
back in the early days, he lived illegally in South-wark Playhouse
to save on rent.
"When I’m directing, I still find it hard to leave the theatre," he
says. "And I’m still not used to money. We were discussing an extra
10 grand for the budget of Enemy of the People and I was thinking,
Ten grand? I set up Southwark Playhouse for £2,000.’"
But a certain amount of stability is welcome now, as Ergen has other
responsibilities beyond the Arcola and his European theatre.
"I got married last year," he says, looking slightly bemused. "Her
name’s Esra Bezen Bilgin and she’s one of the best actresses in
Turkey. She played the Rachel Weisz part for me in Neil LaBute’s
The Shape of Things in Istanbul last year and won every best actress
award."
Does this mean he will be spending more time in Istanbul and
less in London, I ask. "I don’t know," he replies, again, looking
nonplussed. "Thing is, she’s pregnant. And it’s twins. And they’re
due in October. Two theatres. Two countries. Two kids. I don’t know
what will happen. I just have a vision of the two of them sleeping
in a basket in a dressing room somewhere." Why not?
The Lady from the Sea previews from tonight at the Arcola Theatre
(020 7503 1646, )
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