Istanbul

In the organizer's words:

Suppose the economic miracle of the 1950s had not taken place in Germany, but in Turkey. Suppose the Germans had set off abroad, leaving their families behind to rebuild Turkey as German guest workers and alleviate the economic hardship at home. Essen would not have been the city that welcomed the new arrivals, but Istanbul.

With this change of perspective and based on their own family experiences and the questions they ask themselves about home and arrival, Selen Kara, Akın Emanuel Şipal and Torsten Kindermann tell the life story of Essen guest worker Klaus Gruber in the foreign and dazzling metropolis in "Istanbul". In the 1960s, he has to leave his wife, children and his beloved soccer club Rot-Weiss Essen behind and comes to a country whose language and religion are foreign to him. His wife Luise and children soon follow him. Initial difficulties are gradually overcome and the family settles in. At some point, the children speak Turkish better than German. The family becomes at home in the vibrant city.

The story is set to 15 songs by Turkish pop icon Sezen Aksu, which accompany three generations of Turkish society worldwide. Five actors and four musicians sing, make music, tell this tragicomic story and take us back to Istanbul of the last 50 years.

Selen Kara, Akın Emanuel Şipal and Torsten Kindermann have been working together for many years. They premiered this project at Theater Bremen in 2014. Since then, "Istanbul" has been successfully staged at the Schauspielhaus Bochum, the Nationaltheater Mannheim, the theaters in Osnabrück, Bonn and Lübeck, the Schauspielbühnen Stuttgart and the Ruhrfestspiele, among others. We are delighted that the Schauspiel Essen production can now be seen in Düsseldorf.