Theater play on stage after 42 years

ISTANBUL

A theater play by late actor Ferhan Şensoy, “Şahları da Vururlar” (They Shoot Shahs As Well) is back on the stage after 42 years. The play opened the curtain at Ses Theater.

Şensoy was going to bring the musical comedy, which he wrote, directed and played for the first time in 1980, to the audience again in 2020, but he canceled it due to the pandemic.

After the death of the actor on Aug. 31, 2021, his daughters, Müjgan Ferhan Şensoy and Derya Şensoy, handed over their father’s legacy, and the play was put on the stage for the first time before a brand-new generation as part of the 26th Istanbul Theater Festival.

“Şahları da Vururlar,” which had a great impact when it was first staged, begins with the mistaken imprisonment of Ömer Hayyam, who got into trouble with the Iranian Intelligence Agency in 1940s Iran because of a name similarity. The play brings to the stage the dethronement of Shah Reza Pahlavi.

With this play, Şensoy, who also criticizes Türkiye of the period through the turmoil in Iran and makes the audience ask the question “What is westernization and what is not?”