I, ‘DEAR MILENA’ (Kafka & Milena Letters)

Director of cinematography, montage and concept for projection by Nathaniel Hendrickson.

The sentences of love, longing and the desperation caused by being unable to come together in Franz Kafka’s letters to Milena Jesenská written during their two-year correspondence have become precious pieces of the history of world literature. Well, what about Milena’s sentences? What about the lines we have never read by Milena, a journalist, interpreter, writer and a stubborn Nazi resister, known by the whole world only as ‘the woman Kafka fell in love with. I, ‘Dear Milena’, imagines and fictionalizes the ‘missing parts’ of this love correspondence that have not reached the present day. The play, written by Bülent Yıldız, brings Milena’s soul, emotions and pen to the audience on a fictional plane based on the life of Milena Jesenská and Kafka’s letters to her. The play invites the audience to experience a passionate relationship taking place in Europe of the 1920s, by bringing together the fictional lines of Milena with Kafka’s real letters.

MELTEM CUMBUL STUDIO

• Adapted & Written by: Bülent Yıldız

• Directed by: Meltem Cumbul

• Translated into Turkish by: Adalet Cimcoz

• Voices: Meltem Cumbul, Mert Fırat

• Movement Advisor: Fatih Gençkal

• Stage Design: Barış Dinçel, Harun Antakyalı

• Lighting Design: Cem Yılmazer

• Costume Design: Tomris Kuzu

• Video: Nathan Hendrickson

• Sound Design: Melodika

• Musical Director: Emre Yavuz

• Piano: Emre Yavuz

• Violin: Özüm Günöz

• Compositor: Leoš Janáček

• Performer: Meltem Cumbul

Premiered at the 24th annual Istanbul Theater Festival, 2020