Making a statement to our newspaper, Erkekli said, “It makes me proud to be deemed worthy of this award.”
Erkekli said, “This award was an exciting event for me. I came to Ankara in 1974 as a 19-year-old with the excitement of a student who got into the theater department. But the capital, which I despised because I would not stay in this city even for two years, worked for me for 25 years, fed me with its air, bread and water, and raised young Altan Erkekli with its applause. That’s why it’s so exciting. My second school is Ankara Art Theatre. It was Rutkay Aziz who trusted me there and allowed me to appear on stage with the role of Povel in Maxim Gorki’s play ‘Mother’ when I was in the second grade. May the masters we lost rest in peace. Yaman Okay, Erol Demiröz, Rana Cabbar, Meral Niron, Jale Aygaz, Suat Ülhan, Savaş Yurttaş, Mehmet Ulaş and the technical staff Haydar Kızılgül, Sadık Karataş, Ahmet Yıldız and Cezmi Baskin and Salih Kalyon, who are currently living and still doing theater, are my very valuable elders. They opened their hearts to me and stood behind me. I received this award thanks to the efforts of valuable people in this honorable profession such as Özdemir Nutku, Nurhan Karadağ, Sevda Şener, Metin And, Hülya Utku and Turgut Özakman. If it wasn’t for their efforts, I wouldn’t have received this award. “I am grateful to them and the Ankara audience,” he said.
‘LET IT BE GIVEN TO THE CAPITAL’
Saying that he has only one wish, Altan Erkekli said: “I wish that the theater building where I grew up, on the stage where hundreds of masters breathed, that the theater building on Ihlamur Street, that is, the Ankara Art Theater building, be presented to the city of Ankara again, in the place where it was born on December 6, 1963. I sincerely want this building, which has a very important place in the city’s memory, to be used as a museum and left as a memory to future generations, theatergoers and theater retirees. Once again, I would like to thank those who worked hard for me. I am glad that they made this effort, and I am glad that I am making this art on this theater stage together with everyone who strives for a life-changing world that is in favor of love, labor and peace. May the art of theater that transforms life into beauty always exist. “I say long live art, long live theatre,” he said.
The festival, organized in memory of theater artist Genco Erkal, who passed away this year, will continue until December 2.
This year, plays from Serbia, Iran and Azerbaijan, as well as a total of 42 plays from Ankara, Bilecik, Bursa, Bolu, Diyarbakır, Eskişehir, Istanbul, Izmir, Kayseri, Ordu and Zonguldak will be performed at the festival.
At the festival, the “effort award” was also given to Ahmet Kaya, who served the stage as the director of Dostlar Theater for years, and the “Sevda Şener Theater Writing Award” was given to playwright Prof. Dr. It was given to Hasan Erkek.
Source: www.cumhuriyet.com.tr
