The Exit Point of the 'Curfew'

Except for natural misfortunes one must be stuck somewhere ... How terrible. I think this is as worse as being under debris. Even worse. Perhaps even the most common victims can accept their situation to some extent. Because it is the natural conditions that block them there. Or it is human negligence.

Our neck is thinner than a hair in the face of the power of the universe. Human negligence, on the other hand, is punishable by fair judgment, even if it does not bring back the victims.

(We always hope! Those who are not punished are the second or third-degree power holders who are the subject of this game.) What about those who think themselves as strong as nature or even stronger than it? For example, those who want us to be nailed to the place we are in by putting a curfew? Those who see our being stuck somewhere as a salvation for themselves, or who think that this is the only way to ensure social order? Are they not aware of what big concrete they are putting on us? I guess they are not. Because some of the banned people do not care about such a ban. Just like the 555s in the game. I think they are the most beautiful types of this game. They represent the majority. They continued solving puzzles feverishly even during the great earthquake. Dallas or the old bans

Our Mission is like the Danger watchers.
Others get overwhelmed. They even feel so overwhelmed that they feel comfortable.

They keep running between dream and reality in order to confuse and find answers to the questions in their heads. If there was no curfew, they might still sit where they are sitting, but the ban will force them. They force themselves to throw themselves into the street. It forces them to dream freely, to produce remedies.

I want to think of all this confusion in the opposite way.

Let's say, for example: Can I, as a writer, love prohibitions? I think the biggest enemy of the prohibitions is again prohibitions because of the evil desires it arouses in man and the urge to do the opposite of what is forbidden. What about me? ... As a writer, can I be the enemy of prohibitions? ... I guess I can't. Maybe because they push the limits of human remedies. Maybe because it fuels creativity. Since I think that many aesthetic and thoughtful beauties sprout due to prohibitions, I have to love them.

Of course, I am not talking about the necessary prohibitions imposed to protect the social order. What could I possibly be unable to buy or give with traffic bans? I'm talking about the prohibitions that restrict individual freedom. I love them. As a child, one of my millions of dreams was to be in prison and write beautiful stories there, like O'Henry. It was not the subject of the stories I would write, but my situation in the solitary cell. Some nights I would fall asleep on a wooden table behind bars with images of an imaginary self pressing the keys on a typewriter. The restriction of my freedom, the freedom inside my brain erupting like a volcano

it meant for me. I love prohibitions. Because they mean a lot to me.

The more I see their prohibitions, the stronger I feel under their shadow than those who think they have power. As I feel stronger, I see how absurd, how primitive and helpless the prohibitions are. Maybe the prohibitions are scratching my scabies on me. I love it for him. Maybe I wouldn't even speak up if there were no prohibitions. But prohibitions make me cry out into the universe. Not with pain, but with mockery. Not obvious to some, but obvious to many. Leaving the holder of the cell keys helpless and unnecessary. Without a trump card in anyone's hand. Both perceptually and without being perceived ... Without revealing whether it is a dream or a real thing to be told. And by chatting with those who think between the lines. By making them smile if I can. There is no comfort and ceaselessness of being able to say what we want to say easily in prohibitions. If you feel obliged to say something, you need to develop different discourses. Isn't that a reason enough for me as a writer to love prohibitions?

Yet, as a writer in search of discourse, my love of prohibitions cannot prevent me from being overwhelmed and hated by them as a person and as a citizen. Perhaps the conflict in the game comes out of this conflict. Curfew is the product of these thoughts. I wanted to explain my starting point, as I consider writing an additional article explaining what I have written as an unnecessary chore. Have a good time.

Civan Canova

 

1998 CEVDET KUDRET LITERATURE AWARD

 

MEN TOILET

Semih Çelenk: I knew the 'Curfew' game. In the 'Doomsday Waters' ... I did not know of his other plays, including the 'Men's Toilet'. 'Men's Toilet' is indeed a text that the audience will like, enjoy, but at the same time can do thought gymnastics, with some small riddles and subtle references ... While communicating with Civan Canova, he said that everyone liked the text but found it erotic. He claimed that the text was not erotic to those who said this. I think the same, this text is not an erotic or anything… Theater is so important because it is an art that shows people mocking themselves. The 'Men's Restroom' offers us photographs of five different men's restrooms taken with a grotesque camera. Most importantly, it questions "power" and "sexual power." It brings an absurd parody of the stupidity and diminution of man in his intimate sphere. For these reasons, it felt warm to us. Moreover, the inner weave of the text is very clever and gives you pleasure while working.

Interview by: Suha Çalkıvık, 2005