Perfor­mance: Aseas

SALT Galata
17.00 and 18.45

Written & directed by Özen Yula
Assistant director: Feyzan Soykan
Actors: Mustafa Kırantepe and Beyti Engin
Installation & costumes: Başak Özdoğan
Light design: Metin Çelebi


One museum… Two men… Multiple lives…

Two strangers meet at a museum/gallery in a European country. Their aim is to walk comfortably in air-conditioned halls and avoid the heat. With their broken English, they engage in a potentially dangerous reckoning. Because English isn’t their mother tongue, they sometimes express themselves rather bluntly, using a limited vocabulary. They will talk about not only their respective personal histories, but also the histories of their nations.

Can two strangers have a story in common? Or two countries? How much longer can the world carry this burden?

They stroll around, look at works of art, and present each other with sorrow and pride their own histories, pasts, and lives.

By using various ways of viewing, Aseas considers the questions contemporary art asks about ways of seeing.

After its world premiere during the Second International Erbil Theater Festival at Shanidar Art Gallery in Erbil, Iraq on September 20, 2012; in Turkey Aseas will premiere at SALT Galata.

Each performance of the play is limited to an audience of 35, who will be admitted on a first-come first-served basis. The play will be performed in motion throughout the SALT Galata premises. The performance will be held in Turkish.

Özen Yula (writer & director)
The author of 14 books and more than 20 plays, Yula has seen his plays staged in many languages and countries by local theaters, where they have also been published. Most recently his play Lick But Don’t Swallow! was staged at Under the Radar, New York, and Schouwburg, Rotterdam. Another one of his plays, entitled For Rent, will be staged for the second time at La Guardia Performing Arts Center, New York, in October 2012.