A recovery story: Zuhal

Yeser SariYildiz

When some people come up with an exciting idea, they write pages and pages of feasibility studies, only to quickly realize with cost calculations that the idea is unworkable. Others do the best they can with the resources at hand and set out. Life favors the second-best, and Öykü Su Okur is one of them.

One day, I came across a video on social media titled "You're an independent artist and you don't have a poster budget." A young woman was promoting her one-woman play, Zuhal, with handwritten posters, each one different from the others. When I saw that it would be performed at TheraPera a few months later, I bought a ticket without hesitation.

To describe Zuhal as simply a theater play would be an understatement. The moment we step into the space, we're greeted by a universe woven with drawings, lists, and small notes. With phrases like "A list of things that aren't shameful" and "A list of things I'm afraid of," fragments from her diaries and notes, we enter Zuhal's world. Öykü reveals herself in her most unmasked and unfiltered form. The audience becomes a part of the story. We remain in this world even after the performance ends, because Öykü invites the audience to add their own sentences to the lists, sometimes adding new ones to her own fears. "I believe in the power and healing of the collective," she says. "As humans, we truly have the power to heal each other. On days when I can't ask for help, I rewrite the 'ask for help' clause."

HIS STORY STARTED BEFORE THE STAGE

Zuhal's story begins long before the stage. "We met Zuhal when she was depressed," says Öykü. "Since childhood, I'd been the cheerful girl of the house I grew up in, then the school and the street. Positive, energetic, and bouncy. People loved me so much that at some point, I felt ashamed, thinking that unhappiness wasn't my own. While I initially disliked my fragile side, I thought no one else would. I named this girl Zuhal in the poems I wrote during that time. When I learned my house was going to be demolished by urban renewal, I decided to say goodbye to this house and Zuhal. Those were difficult days. I had a text I'd collaged from poems and therapy notes in my diary; my goal was to create space for Zuhal and let her go. I read it to one friend, then three. I began to tell this text in two sessions at my home over the course of 12 days, and the more I told it, the more I felt relief. I called my mother and father. We hugged, we cried, and we healed. They loved Zuhal just as much as Öykü. Some loved her more. The house was demolished, but Zuhal didn't say goodbye to me. She held my hand tightly. I'm so glad it happened that way."

A SCENE CREATED FROM IMPOSSIBILITY

Regarding the text, she says, “Perhaps if someone else had handed it to me, I would have said, ‘This story can’t be performed on stage.’” “But the troubles and words are so personal to me that I find myself telling them through a playful narrative.” Her stage, unlike a theater set constructed for grand productions, is a creative space born of impossibilities. “When I was at the conservatory, a teacher of mine said, ‘Creativity is born from impossibility.’ And it really is,” she says. Öykü, a one-person cast, creates her sets with paper, pencils, and tape. Lacking the budget to perform on stage, she begins by performing in her home, friends’ living rooms, and gardens.

Zuhal isn't Öykü's only project these days. She stars in the mainstream series Bahar and the play Afife. "Mainstream work provides you with visibility and a financially more comfortable income, which is crucial for young artists like me," she says. "Being both young and an artist in this world is incredibly difficult. While the system encourages you to consume, you come out and say, 'No, I'm going to create.' I'm grateful to be in work like this. It makes me feel more confident, so I can move forward more easily."

In full support of her words, she recently organized a free street theater performance in Kadıköy Yoğurtçu Park to celebrate Zuhal's first birthday. Öykü Su Okur is a hardworking, creative, and relentless young woman with the courage to put herself out there. That's precisely why I encourage you to follow and watch Zuhal: to see once again that your dreams don't need to be handed to you on a silver platter and to take action.