Virginia Woolf’s Freshwater: A Comedy made its first appearance in Turkish in Turkey on Sept. 6, 100 years after it was written.

A scene in the staged reading of Woolf’s Freshwater in Turkish on Sept. 6. Photo by Tuğba Çanakçı & Alperen Yedekçi.

The panel discussion of the play and the staged reading were part of the 2nd International UTAD Conference, with its theme of “Existence, Tradition and Future.” It was held at Bahçeşehir University’s Pera Sahne.

A panel discussion led by Prof. Dr. Özyurt Kılıç and joined by Associate Professor Dr. Z. Gizem Yılmaz, introduced the audience to Woolf’s exploration of the boundaries between life and art, and how Freshwater fits into her broader body of work. Following the discussion, the play was performed as a staged reading.

Professor Kılıç describes the play as an example of “audience-specific drama,” providing a unique and thought-provoking experience for attendees. It is also said to give theatre scholars an opportunity to explore the multi-layered meaning of the play.

Background of the play

Freshwater concerns Woolf’s great-aunt, photographer Julie Margaret Cameron. and her coterie of artists that included Alfred Lord Tennyson and George Frederick Watts.

Woolf wrote Freshwater, which is set in a Victorian garden on a summer evening, in 1923 and revised it in 1935. In it, she creates “a deliberately witty and wacky universe peopled with a tribe of artists, friends, and lovers in a playful mood,” according to the Women’s Project. In its time, the play was praised for its humor and its challenge to traditional theatre norms.

It was staged for the first time in the U.S. in early 2009.

Get the Turkish translation online

Ercan Gürova’s translation, presented with a foreword by Özyurt Kılıç, was published by Mitos Boyut Yayınları and can be accessed online.