conversations in ten questions 30 : Magne van den Berg

Organized by GalataPerform and being the first playwriting festival in Turkey, the New Text Festival was held for the tenth time this year between November 1st and 28th, 2021, with a hybrid structure focused on the theme of "Breath", both in the physical space and digitally. 

 We hosted Magne van den Berg in the second of our conversations with international playwrights whose plays were translated into Turkish and staged and read at the festival. 

 Ayşe Draz & Mehmet Kerem Özel

© Caroline Bijlhi

What is the essence of good play/playwriting in your opinion?

For me the essence is to find the right tone in which a play is put… almost like making music… the right content in the right form, makes a good play a good for me… besides that it is important that a play shows me something that was hidden, that I was uncontious of, a taboo, a pain or un unconvenient thuth that is not easy to talk about, and I like it when there is something to laugh and cry about.

Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How?

Art is a safe haven where we can expresss ourselves and share our deepest fears and angers… I think anger is a very strong motor for an artist. As an artist you have to be brave and share your deepest insight. As for the audience I think Art can be healing, in the sense that, art is always done by people for people, so your not alone… that is a great consolation… I don’t know if art can change the world, but it can change our opinion about it, and that in itselve is a good start.

How do you think that the pandemic that we are facing at a global scale did and will transform performing arts?

That is difficult, I don’t know yet, maybe we go back to a smaller scale… with less audience, we might change the hours when we go to see theatre… we might use streaming more, we might become more aware of our vulnarabality… the pandemic might as well attack the art… as for now in Holland all the theatres and museums are closed, everything is cancelled… very sad… so the pandemic might become a huge enemy of the art…

Are there any artist whom you can describe as "my master", or any person whom you think influenced your art most? And if there is such an artist or person, who?

I had some teachers at the theatreschool who where very important to me, as Kas en de Wolf and Nieuw West / Marien Jongewaard, but Beckett safed my live, he showed me how to transform inner struggle into words and sentences, Thomas Bernhard showed me how to transform anger into humour, Pinter showed me the same and his musicality. David Lynch was important for breaking the rules concerning telling a story from A to B. Marguerite Duras was important for using your own pain and seksuality… and so on.

When you are working on a piece, what sources inspire you? Do dreams play a role in your works?

I don’t use dreams so much, I often start with a setting and a tone… and a firm idea about what the play should ‘talk’, main source is always people and how they behave…

When do you decide to give a title to a work you are working on if it already does not have one?

A title is important, it frames the work, I am always happy when I start with one, I always find it difficult to add a title later… it mostly doesn’t work if I make up the title after I finished the work, it is better to start with a title that yet has information in it self.

Do you believe your works resonate more with your local culture/community or more universally?

Of course I hope it is universal, but I guess that my minimalism is very Dutch… very Piet Mondriaan, I can imagine that in foreign countries they think I am a bit short minded cause my sentences are so short… I just like it to be very economic…

What are your main concerns when a play of yours is translated into another language?

That the dubbel or tripel layers are missed out, that the translation is too dry, I mean only on the level of the anekdote / story, as for me there is much more.

Your play Bare Trees Don’t Rustle is referred to by some as a contemporary, female-based Godot; can you elaborate on the themes of your play that was shared with us in the staged reading?

I’m sorry I don’t remember exactely what we’ve talked about after the reading, maybe we should talk about this on the phone… I have to say that I never tried to write a Waiting for Godot for two woman, it appeared in the press, but I never thought of it while writing it… I think Waiting for Godot is a masterpiece, I would never have the courage to try to copy that play…

Which elements surprised you and which elements were just as you expected in the staged reading of your works by the participant artists of the New Text – New Theatre Festival in Istanbul?

It very much surprised me that the director changed the roles. In a certain – very important last part of the play, he changed the roles… So there is one victim of domestic violence, and the other woman refers to that painful history, the woman who is victim is only answering with yes and no… very limited, but very interesting as a ‘no’ can mean ‘yes’, and reverse… the director changed that, as I experienced it, we lost the final moment of deep grief and pain and shame, in which the two woman find each other, as it is not sure that the one who is posing the questions, it not telling her own story… so that really surprised me… I think I missed the pain…

[The Turkish version of this interview was published on unlimited.]