Wolfram Lotz's Die Lächerliche Finsternis (The Ridiculous Darkness) was produced in 2014. The piece extends the history of colonialism to today and is based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Lotz broaches the subject of neocolonialism after September 11th. The piece begins with the plea of a Somali pirate and follows the paths of two German soldiers on a secret mission in Afghanistan. Their trip along the course of the river is also a journey through Western colonial history from past to present. The premiere at the Burgtheater in Vienna was a resounding success and was invited to the Theatertreffen festival in Berlin and the Mülheim Theatre Days in 2015. Theater heute magazine chose the piece as the German-language play of the year in 2015.
In his production for the Bakırköy Belediye Tiyatrosu, Nurkan Erpulat has endeavoured to take the text, which looks at the issue from a specifically German perspective, and transfer it to Turkey.
Erpulat tells Die Lächerliche Finsternis as a story of Western barbarism in the guise of starry-eyed idealism that's still stuck in colonial paradigms.
Nurkan Erpulat is a director in residence at Gorki. He is preparing a bigger project for Gorki, called Love it or leave it!, which deals with the current situation in Turkey
Guest performance: Bakırköy Beledİye Tiyatrosu, İstanbul
