conversations in ten questions 32 : Athena Farrokhzad
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 Athena Farrokhzad in the fourth of our conversations with international playwrights whose plays were translated into Turkish and staged and read at the festival. Ayşe Draz & Mehmet Kerem Özel © Carla Orrego Veliz What is the essence of good play/playwriting in your opinion? To me, a written play, more than anything, is literature. Therefor, the same quality criterias as other forms of writing can be applied to it: complexity and fierceness of style, a linguistic/existential/political/etc intervention that moves the reader/the world/the history of literature etc. Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How? Yes and no. I believe good art addresses the material conditions of life...