‘I stand on the shoulders of other artists, but I do my own thing’

‘I have a great need for new stories. I don’t want to use Shakespeare from an old repertoire to be able to say something about the Dutch slavery past, which is forced. Then I think: let’s just write a new story.’

In a studio of Theatergroep Rast in Amsterdam, director Ada Ozdogan tells passionately about her new theater performance Grace, soon at the Oerol festival on Terschelling and then elsewhere in the country. She just waved goodbye to the actors who tried on costumes, including Momo Samwel and the Theo d’Or stage award nominee Charlie Chan Dagelet, the lead actor. Ozdogan wrote the script for Grace together with Samwel, both still have to get used to the double hats.

Ozdogan: ‘I have gained knowledge about playwriting from my classical training, but I find it difficult to get the most out of yourself as a writer. Nathan Vecht, who wrote the screenplay for the TV series The year of Fortuyn wrote helped us build, the intent of each character, and what we want to achieve per scene.”

Grace is inspired by the Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained, in which a ransomed enslaved takes revenge on his oppressors. Ozdogan deliberately chose a female ‘Django’ (‘I thought: not a man again’) who wants to free her lover from an evil plantation owner on the fictional island ‘The Colony’ with the help of two bounty hunters.

Ozdogan: ‘At school we learned that the VOC champions were the heroes and enslaved the poor victims. That while the population of the Dutch East Indies was anything but tame. That’s why in our piece we wanted the people of color to be the heroes. They had to endure all that misery and really didn’t always take the situation for granted.’

Like Tarantino, Ozdogan aims to create a world in which violence is tolerated. The formal acting style, incident hip-hop beats and a scene in which a body part is cut off is also reminiscent of Tarantino.

Ozdogan makes no secret of its indebtedness. Film director Martin Scorsese said, ‘You can only become a good maker if you know what happened before you.’ I think it’s crazy when some artists deny that they have been influenced by others and pretend that it all comes from within themselves. I stand on the shoulders of all kinds of great artists. I build on what others have made. That works well, because I make it my own thing anyway.’

The fascination for film was instilled in Ozdogan from an early age; her mother is originally a filmmaker, they watched many films together and then discussed why a director chose a certain shot. ‘I think a lot in camera images when I make theatre. Sometimes I want a shot on an actor, but of course I don’t have a camera. So I say to the actor: ‘You have to stand there, because we have to focus on this text and I want to see your face and emotion now.’ I’m quite nit-picky and strict about that.’

Before her parents ended up in Amsterdam as political refugees, they lived in Istanbul. Her mother studied there at the Technical University, her father was a journalist with his own newspaper. In the Netherlands, her mother got a foothold as a TV maker, her father works at the International Institute of Social History. Ozdogan has subtly incorporated her Turkish-Kurdish background in Grace: One of the bounty hunters is a Kurdish refugee from Turkey, played by Sidar Toksöz. He also fulfills the role of a dengbej (Kurdish for ‘storyteller’), but he doesn’t want to be a mouthpiece for the community. Pointedly he proclaims in Grace: ‘This isn’t what I’m selling. I don’t want to be reduced to my background.’

Although Ozdogan always wanted to be a director, her mother advised her to act first. Otherwise, shy as she was, she wouldn’t be able to lead a crew later on. After high school, Ozdogan wanted to go to film school, but she was still too young. When she was allowed to follow the directing course at the Theater Academy in Maastricht, she panicked. ‘My mother said, ‘This is perfect, because now you’re going to do a classical education, after that you can always go into the film world.’ I have become attached to the theatre, but one day I want to direct a film. But first I’m figuring out writing and directing for theater. I can make a film for the rest of my life.’