REVIEW: Cihangir Atölye Sahnesi Presents Kâtip Bartleby

The three previous productions I attended at Cihangir Atölye Sahnesi achieved what felt like a contradiction in terms: blackbox maximalism. Imagine my surprise, then, when I entered their space for Kâtip Bartleby, an adaptation of Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, and found a concentrated, stripped-down staging. This production featured only five actors, rather than the usual ten or twelve, and could, with some adjustment, almost be performed as a one-person show. What amazed me was how comfortable the performers seemed in this reduced atmosphere, just as they are in CAC’s signature maximalist cacophony.

Melville’s story is set in antebellum Wall Street, but Cihangir Atölye Sahnesi has wisely shifted the action into a 20th-century film-noir setting, heightening the social legibility of its stakes. The narrator works in a Wall Street office alongside two scriveners (copyists) and an errand boy. Bartleby enters the office as a new scrivener and, after a productive beginning, gradually retreats into his refrain: “I would prefer not to” (Yapmamayı tercih ederim.) He spends his days staring out the window. He is, with reluctance, dismissed from his position, and then wanders New York. While on the streets, he refuses help from anyone, including the narrator. His refrain never changes, "I would prefer not to." It is not whimsy. It is depression and at the story's end he dies. Politically, this is the least dialectical production I’ve seen from the company, yet the plot still expands into their usual sociopolitical frame. What do we owe each other? What are the limits of compassion in a capitalist society? What does work offer us?

While the company’s performances typically distribute attention among a large ensemble, this production is carried by only five performers. The bulk of the narrative weight falls to Yusuf Kısa as the narrator, who relays information with a clipped, radio-broadcast urgency. He balances the narrator’s frustration and compassion toward Bartleby with finesse. The remaining cast do far more than simply provide support. As Ginger Nut, Osman Onur Can mugs silently with an elasticity that recalls the cobbler in The Thief and the Cobbler (1993). Dorukhan Kenger plays Turkey with a gruff, offhand looseness, while Can Seçki’s Nippers emerges as a proper Wall Street fop. Together, they offer vivid comic texture to the office world. This texture is starkly countered by Kerem Akı’s Bartleby. Akı’s performance is, appropriately, one-note, but that single note fractures every scene he enters. He arrives like a depressed New Yorker cartoon. His “I would prefer not to” is not a trombone in the ensemble’s musicality, but a pause within it.

Director Muhammet Uzuner’s fusion of film noir and absurdism creates a contemplative atmosphere. This aesthetic concept is inspired enough to feel inevitable. The stripped-back staging also allows the design elements to shape the world with unusual clarity. Veli Kahraman’s set consists only of office desks, removed once Bartleby exits the space. Nihan Şen’s costumes gesture toward the era without burdening the stage with photorealism. While strong sound design is common at Cihangir Atölye Sahnesi, Berkay Özides’s music is notably spry, lending the production an almost audiobook like rhythm in its editing of dialogue. Finally, Uzuner’s lighting design sculpts the blackbox into shifting noir motifs. With so much world-building carried by Yusuf Kısa’s narration, the production proves that less truly is more.