American theater personality directs plays in Istanbul

Istanbul (Dunya) – During a rehearsal of William Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Hamlet’ at a small theater in Istanbul two weeks ago, director Neil S. Fleckman jumped on to the stage, gesticulating wildly and exhorting his actors to perform the scene with greater intensity.

“The scene needs more snap and punch. It has to be electrically charged,” the 55-year old director admonished his Turkish actors. “You need to enter the stage suddenly move around faster, scream, shout and bang tables and chairs, and leave abruptly.”  
The players at Altkat Sanat, a boutique theater in Kadikoy on the Asian side of the city, responded by performing the scene with more vigor and enthusiasm.

Located in a basement of an apartment building, Altkat Sanat can seat only 33 persons at one performance, and the players perform the action-packed tragedy both on the stage and in the aisles, amidst the spectators.

“I like theaters like this one,” Mr. Fleckman said during an interview. “It brings the play right into the lap of the audience.”

Mr. Fleckman is one of several American theater directors working abroad, mainly on contract with the U.S. State Department, directing plays in many countries.
A friendly figure with an infectious smile, he lives in a hotel overlooking a busy street in Kadikoy’s main fish and vegetable market, flanked by outdoor cafes and restaurants.

Living in hotels

“I have been constantly travelling years and years. I am very organized and live in hotels,” he said.
A former Broadway actor and producer, he has been living and working in Turkey the past 15 years, but he and his partners have directed plays and musicals and put on engagements for entertainment companies, dance groups and prominent vocalists in the U.S., Canada, Moldova, Ukraine, Tunisia, Russia, Canada, Argentina, Vietnam and all over Latin America.
He frequently travels abroad. He left for Bosnia, after the premiere of ‘Hamlet’ on January 11, to direct a play in Sarajevo.
Hailing from Louisiana, Mr. Fleckman graduated with honors in Russian from the University of Louisville, and did post graduate work in theater at Columbia University’s School of Arts.
“I took my mother’s path. She had been an actress,” he said. His brother is a lawyer and his sister is a medical doctor.
His debut as an actor was in the National Company of Tom Stoppard’s ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” produced by David Merrick (1911-2000), a popular Broadway producer.
As an actor, he toured all the major cities in the U.S. and Canada for five years before becoming a theater manager and producer.
“I wanted to explore the other the other side of the footlights – the management side. I became a theater and performance arts manager and producer for 10 years,” he recalled.

Performances for Nureyev

He served as general manager of the Paul Taylor Dance Company and presented Taylor on Broadway theaters. He also arranged engagements for the company featuring ex-Soviet ballet star Rudolf Nureyev and his dance group.
With his partner Bruce Marshall, Mr. Fleckman managed such touring Broadway musicals as ‘Jerry’s Girls,’ ‘Madwoman of Central Park West,’ ‘Tintypes,’ and comic opera ‘The Pirates of Penzance,’ working with such stars as Jo Anne Worley, Phyllis Newman, and  Metropolitan opera singer Patrice Munsel. They also put on shows for concert artists Barbara Cook, Jo Sullivan and the late Kitty Carlisle Hart.
The two also collaborated with the actress Joanne Woodward, the wife of the late actor Paul Newman, in establishing the Dennis Wayne Dancers and in arranging tours for ballet companies.
On his own and with partners, he managed and produced plays and concerts in the U.S., Canada and South America, mostly financed by the U.S. State Department. He managed a tour of Latin America with a group of black singers and actors, performing Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin,” and produced the Broadway musical “42nd Street” in Buenos Aires.
In the 1990s, he started directing plays. The first play he directed was a theatrical adaptation of Henry James’ novella ‘Turn of the Screw,’ which was performed in Kiev, and was organized by a Ukraine diplomat.
In 1998, he came to Turkey and worked as an instructor at Academy Istanbul, in Beyoglu, and with the Mujdat Gezen’s Actors’ Studio. He teamed up with Turkish actor Deniz Boldaz, 35, and formed a theater production company, Tiyatro Kirmizi.
In Istanbul, he has directed numerous plays, including  Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town,’ Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’  John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ and Sam Shepard’s ‘The Curse of a Starving Class” – all in the Turkish language.

Hamlet

At Altkat Sanat, the actor-director Nevzat Sus, who plays the role Claudius, the king of Denmark in ‘Hamlet,’ said the tragedy is “a play for all times,” including present day Turkey.
“It has everything in it political ambition, treachery, jealousy, revenge, corruption, love and murder,” stressed Mr. Sus, who owns the theater with his wife, the actress-director Muge Saut, who plays the queen.
They have learned a great deal from Mr. Fleckman and his role as director.