GLR May-June 2026

sexuality was widespread in prisons, but a “bilirki ş i heyeti” [fact-finding mission] came forward and said: “No, this play is a good example of how to address violence. It talks about child abuse, which is still a big problem today.” They also pointed out that the play highlights issues like prostitution, poverty, and the clash of different classes. Jimmy did such a great job with the play that you could feel all of this. You could even see how, when contradictions come together, people are still just people. We are all human. The fact-finding commission concluded that the play conveyed important lessons and that even parents and families should see it. So they overturned the ban. İŞ : For how long was the play staged in Turkey? ZO: It ran for a year and even toured other cities in Turkey like Ankara, İ zmir, Trabzon, and even parts of Anatolia. It was well received everywhere. But Jimmy wasn’t with us during this time because he had to be back in the U.S. However, he was still involved from afar. For instance, the same theater company, Gülriz and Engin’s theater, decided to stage the Turkish version of the musical Hair , and I ended up translating it. We were look ing for a good choreographer, and Jimmy hooked us up with one of his friends, Bernard Husserl, a choreographer who was working in Paris at the time. So Husserl came to Istanbul and created the entire choreography for the Turkish version of Hair , which was magical. One more thing I want to mention about Dü ş enin Dostu . While the rehearsals were happening, life was still going on for us. For example, Ali Poyrazo ğ lu lost his father, and there were other tragedies around us. Besides simply being a director to his actors, Jimmy was like a father to the cast. He would phys ically hold us, hug us, comfort us, and plead. I’d honestly never seen Jimmy like that outside of rehearsals. I mean, he had his own issues in Istanbul too. Sometimes his lover would leave and he’d get sad, just putting his head on my shoulder and cry ing. He was so sensitive, in a way that he never hid his feelings, which is probably why he often got distressed. And in those mo ments, we’d console him. He was like a brother, a father, a son—so close to all of us. İŞ : It sounds like you weren’t only working together, but that you were like a queer family. Were there parts of Istanbul that Baldwin specifically liked visiting? ZO: He loved the Sultanahmet area, Galata, and the Grand Bazaar. He really enjoyed being around regular folks, so he’d hang out at cafés where only locals went. He smoked nonstop— one cigarette after another. He was always using gestures, body language, and his hands to communicate. Everyone used to call him “Jimmy” or “Arap,” which just meant “Black” in Turkish, not necessarily “Arab” back then. That was his nickname. İŞ : What do you think about the fact that James Baldwin never talked about Turkey in his writings or interviews? ZO: Yes, he never talks about Turkey, but I can understand that. He even explained that to me on the first day we met. He said: “I don’t come here as a voyeur; I’m not trying to catch a story from here. I’m here because I can breathe here. I’m here be cause from here I can look at my country from a distance, in a better way. I’m here because I can work here.” With that said, he was always looking toward his own country.

the very last weeks of our rehearsals, Jimmy wanted us to have some sort of music for the play, but we somehow couldn’t find anyone. And there came Don, magically. So we threw a big party for him, where Jimmy told him: “You will stay with me at my house and compose music for our play.” And so he did. Don came to our rehearsals, I read to him the English version, and he immediately started to produce mar velous melodies with his small trumpet. Okay Temiz, a Turkish jazz musician, also worked with him. I think this record is all cleaned up now and will be released soon. İŞ : In the play, were there sound effects alongside full songs? ZO: Yes, small noises and sounds were extremely crucial in the play. For instance, we had no conventional theater curtain. Our curtain was the iron bar. And whenever there was a fighting scene in the play, you would also hear actors kicking those bars. They would push each other and so on. So in a sense the play was not only thematically violent but physically too. The lan guage was very harsh too, full of swearing. In fact, my mother told me: “How can you say such words? I wanted to hide my self out of shame when I saw the play.” This is funny, but it’s also very true that you didn’t hear such aggressive language in Turkish theater at the time. It was harsh, but it wasn’t obscene. It was erotic. And Don Cherry composed something very spe cial to reflect its auditory effect. When the play opened in December 1969, it was a huge suc cess. People were shocked, but they loved it. Of course, we had some awful moments too, like random audience members stand ing up and yelling: “What the hell is this? What kind of atroc ity is this?” or “There are women and children here, shame on you!” But the theater critics loved it and found it to be power ful. Because it was. While the play was running, Jimmy was dealing with an issue over one of his books in New York City. It had been censored, and there was a court case against him, so he had to leave. While he was gone, the Turkish police came and shut down our play. İŞ : And this brings us to the story of Dü ş eninDostu ’s banning. What was the official reason for the ban given by the Istanbul Governor’s office? ZO: Well, someone had filed a complaint about the play, claim ing it would ruin the lives of our children. We knew that homo Zeynep Oral, James Baldwin, and Ali Poyrazo ğ lu. 1960s, Istanbul.

TheG & LR

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