Miriam Trujillo
Content Warning: Discussion of Suicide
Büke Erkoç’s passionate, vivacious presence in her one-woman show The Future Looks Bright belies the anger and misery that her main character is undergoing. As the show opens we learn that this protagonist, this young Turkish immigrant woman is on the verge of committing suicide. It is not her first attempt.
In her opening monologue she neurotically takes us through every graphic detail of what would happen to her body if she completed her attempt this time. With these images still on the audience’s mind, the young woman wastes no time. She gets up on that building…and jumps.
Instantly, the narration shifts. We see her life pass before her eyes throughout the remaining monologues as she’s hangs in midair, suicide attempt suspended in time. The whole show is framed by her attempt.
She takes us back to her childhood…her father and brother, always fighting; her mother always silent. She wants to get closer to her mother but that silence is like a wall. In one particularly poignant scene, she begs her mother, (singling out and addressing one audience member directly) to come dance with her at a wedding. The scene is prolonged, and it’s almost excruciating to hear this little girl beg and beg… and receive silence as an answer
Silence is the theme with her mother. But in other areas of our protagonist’s life, things are getting exciting. As she grows up, she becomes embroiled in the communist resistance sweeping her country. She reads books that open her mind, falls in love with a rebellious student, and witnesses some of the triumphs and horrors of the class war. One communist author in particular leaves a lasting impression on her and, in another attempt to connect with her mother, she tries to share that book with her. Silence.
The young woman’s involvement with the resistance reaches a bloody climax and, around the same time, her mother dies. Our protagonist goes home to bury her mother and take care of her possessions. When she tries to pawn her mother’s wedding ring, however everything changes. The ring is not a wedding ring at all. The inscription is from another man: the author of the communist book.
Suddenly we are plunged into another story. Our protagonist witnesses her mother’s life, pre-marriage, unfolding in front of her as if it was all happening again. She learns that her mother was the communist writer’s lover. She was once full of the same fire that fills her daughter. One day her lover was shot down in the street, dying for his beliefs. The mother braved mobs, bureaucratic borders, and all kinds of adversity to bring her lover’s body from Turkey. She emigrated to England, guarding her lover’s body. Then she fell silent.
In the last scenes we unfreeze time. Gravity takes up its toll, and our protagonist falls to the ground. She is reunited with her mother who finally speaks. Together they eat plums up in a tree and our protagonist learns with joy that her jump ended her life.
The Future Looks Bright brought up some incredibly strong, poignant concepts. Thanks to Erkoç’s passion I could feel the protagonist’s longing and excitement as she’s swept up into a social struggle she barely understands. I could feel the urgency as she tries to connect with her mother. An impeccably-timed sound and light design explosively introduced us to all the settings of this class war and family drama. You can tell that the creators’ behind this show put everything they had into the show. Their commitment to their project is beautiful.
Nevertheless, the production felt undercooked at times. More than once, Erkoç faltered and had to ask tech where she was in the script. Naturally this hampered my suspension of belief, but I do consider that a superficial problem with an easy solution. Going a bit deeper, though, I thought some of the acting choices veered into overacting. Erkoç punctuated every dramatic moment with screaming, wild gesticulations etc, instead of letting these truly poignant moments speak for themselves. I’m no actor or acting coach, but I know if some of those moments had been whispered rather than screamed, restrained rather than emoted, I would have been on the edge of my seat, trying to catch every nuance of this beautiful character. Instead, with these moments thrown at me, instead of held just out of reach, I was on the back of my seat not the edge.
My biggest problem with the show, however, lay with the script. The script brought up a thematic juggernaut, suicide, but never really treated it with its due weight. Like a Chekhov’s gun that never went off, suicide was introduced, but all the heavy realities around suicide were given little to no thought at all. The presence of the suicide didn’t feel sufficiently explained, developed or justified to exist in the show at all. In fact, I felt like it detracted attention from the far more vivid story of a young girl’s search for her mother. That brighter stronger story, could have been told irrespective of the suicide plot line, and it would have been a stronger script for it. The two plot lines did not feel organically, inevitably connected.
This criticism, unfortunately, goes beyond an artistic criticism. A work that evokes suicide without proper precaution is a work that can have a disastrous effect on a vulnerable mind. While I think most audience members will be in a place to sympathize with the young, suicidal protagonist and will be able to calmly agree or disagree with her actions based upon their own personal beliefs; I think this show could very much be taken the wrong way by someone who is already romanticizing suicide. Someone who hasn’t thought through all of its consequences and implications. Speaking as a person who comes from a region absolutely ravaged by suicide, I’d be very wary of recommending this show to just anyone.
Recommended Drink: Definitely something hard, vodka maybe, straight up.
Freddie Haberfellner
Mike Dorey
