unseen

“We are all watched. We are all assembled.”
—“Return,” Carolyn Forché

unseen is a daunting play. Its quiet elegance hides much — bold political exploration, an unflinching depiction of pain and trauma, and complex cross-cultural dialogue (literally in three languages).

So as our formidable cast and creative team sat around the table at first rehearsal, all of us sheepishly wearing our masks, we had to take a moment to acknowledge our fear — of not doing justice to the tonal and emotional range of Mona’s writing and to the realities that inspired the stories depicted in the play.

To ease our way, Mona started our days with poetry: Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Kindness,” Mahmoud Darwish’s “I Have a Seat in the Abandoned Theater,” Marie Howe’s “My Mother’s Body,” and Carolyn Forché’s “The Colonel,” to name a few. This simple act of sharing art quickly made the impossibly large questions at the heart of unseen more human-sized.

We looked through Nichole Sobecki’s impactful imagery, which has long provided a visual guide for us to Mia’s artistry in the play. I gave a photo-tour of my hometown Istanbul, sharing not-often-told stories of a moody, artsy, teenage Evren traipsing all over the city. And we slowly re-found our commitment to keep moving forward despite the fear. So much so that I felt, maybe for the first time in my career, that I could bring my whole self into the work untranslated, and create directly from my truth as a Turkish, queer immigrant.

Soon, I was laughing as my co-workers bopped to iconic Sezen Aksu songs at our Zoom meet-and-greet. I teared up when I first saw the impeccable artistry of OSF’s all-star crews on the handcrafted coffee table based on ancient Ottoman designs. And I sat in thankfulness that we, once again, get to do this thing we love!

I would love to end my director’s note right there, but easy happy endings are not possible. For this play or in life. As we started rehearsing, the war in Ukraine took over the headlines — with terrible bloodshed continuing to rage in places like Palestine and Yemen with little attention paid. Photos, narratives, outrage, and apathy flooded our media. Suddenly, our little play was at the center of the American zeitgeist.

So, in this moment of great loss, we add this play as our small artistic token to the current conversation. I hope its provocation encourages you to think, feel, wrestle with the gray areas, passionately argue, and helps you find healing that propels you towards action.

—Evren Odcikin