Celebrating the New “Normal”? Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s Perikızı and the Festival Context

Abstract

The final full chapter returns to Ozdamar’s theatrical work and the commission of her Perikizi in the context of Essen and the Ruhr area’s year as European Capital of Culture. The Ruhr area’s stated aim was to use the year to create a new understanding of the area as a European metropolis characterised by diversity and this chapter asks whether the embrace of the female migrant as dramatic figure indicates a normalisation of migration and an expansion or re-scripting of the “reality” to which state-subsidised theatre in Germany relates? In conclusion, I compare the premiere to a subsequent production at the Ballhaus which uses metatheatrical elements to highlight the ways in which the cultural sphere in Germany has contributed to the restrictive scripts Turkish-German actors are often expected to perform.