The Importance of Being Earnest at Tower Theatre

Pan Productions, formed in 2016 by Theatre Producer Ms Zeynep Dalkiran, is an independent, London based company which focuses on bringing into the UK Turkish speaking productions with internationally renowned Turkish speaking actors, artists and musicians.

However, in addition to putting on productions for the Turkish speaking community in the UK, Pan Productions also work with communities from all international backgrounds.

Their next step in this arena will be a New Year production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest which will run at Stoke Newington's Tower Theatre from 6 to 18 January 2020.

Pan productions' first play in English will be created with a team of immigrant actors and creatives, who, like the characters in the play, are constantly asked where they are from, when all they want to explain is who they are.

Award-winning director Aylin Bozok (Children of War, Arcola Theatre and British Museum; Cholera Street, Arcola Theatre) will direct the story of Algernon who knows where he comes from but is unsure about who he is; and Earnest who thinks he knows who he is but not where he is from.

As performative identity runs up against people's stereotypical assumptions, The Importance of Being Earnest resonates with the unique identity crisis of the migrant experience.

A play that has been revived many times will be presented by a group of actors and creatives who spoke their first words in different languages but who have made the UK their home, and English the language of their daily toil and nightly poetry.

The production dwells on the unspoken rules that English society enforces and confronts the struggle to fit in when you have a different accent, a different upbringing and different cultural expectations.

It makes the audience contemplate identity and belonging to create a new vision of a classic to celebrate diversity.

Aylin Bozok commented ...

"As the daughter of immigrants, I was born in Switzerland and grew up there and in Turkey, but I never felt I belonged to either.

I can safely say that I feel I am a Londoner.

And now tackling this quintessentially English play I find I could relate to it because despite cultural and linguistical differences, humans are humans, whether in their truth or their lies."

Producer Zeynep Dalkiran added ...

"When Pan Productions was set up back in 2016, I had a vision of working with the diverse, international artistic community of London.

I wanted to celebrate all those different identities working in disjointed harmony together.

Today, I am so happy to have been able create something to blend this all together.

In our new look at Wilde's iconic play we have added many new flavours through both the casting and the direction.

Oscar Wilde was an immigrant, but he didn't tell stories of immigrants.

He told human stories.

The stories we tell in our work are not only the stories of Turks, Romanians, Italians or Scots or indeed the English.

All are in our team and all add their experiences into the mix to tell you this story wherever you are from.

We are very excited to share it with you."

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