Die Optimistinnen

In the organizer's words:

Language! Education! Wages!

Version by Murat Yeginer / With music by Âşık Veysel via Tarkan to Sezen Aksu
Revival from the 2023/24 season

It's the early 1970s: Nour leaves Istanbul to earn money in Germany. She stands out with her miniskirt; the village women in the Upper Palatinate usually wear long skirts, some also wear headscarves. Things are lively in the cramped dormitory with women from Spain, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey. In the porcelain factory, time clocks, hard physical labor and the scrutinizing gaze of the foreman determine her existence. At the cemetery, Nour finds peace and a favorite place: at the grave of a young woman from the 1920s who fought for the rights of female workers. Nour's sense of justice is also strong. On the meadow behind the hostel, she and her friends and work colleagues write their demands on Easter eggs and bed sheets: Language! Education! Wages!

Gün Tank's "Novel of our Mothers" fills a gap in the male-dominated history of the so-called "guest workers". It tells of (female) solidarity and the enormous contribution these women made to the labor struggle throughout Germany. The music of these communities, which - as in the production Istanbul from the 2016/17 season - is an essential part of the stage action, has gone similarly unnoticed by the German public.


Click here for the Spotify playlist of the play.

Güzide Coker is a student at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts