Celil Toksöz

Celil Toksöz

Celil Toksöz (59), is the Kurdish-Turkish-Dutch director of Theater RAST from Amsterdam, who will adapt Bryan Doerries’ the Suppliants for the Forum. In 1986, he started playing Turkish-language performances in the Netherlands, where he ended up as a refugee and sought to connect with society through theatre. Toksöz comes from a rich Kurdish tradition of storytellers; one of his first works was translating Bredero into Turkish and became a drama teacher in the Netherlands in the 1990s.

Recently, Toksöz focuses on adapting classic operas and plays to Kurdish language and storytelling styles. After creating an adaptation of Hamlet, Puccini’s Tosca was made in Kurdish, shown in Toksöz’s hometown of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey.

Celil Toksöz contributes to The Suppliants on 19 & 20 September at 2:oo pm in Tolhuistuin