Genco Erkal

Genco Erkal — Biography

Born in Istanbul on 28 March 1938 to naval officer Reşat Bey and Nebahat Hanım, a noted tailor of her era, Genco Erkal boarded at Galatasaray High School before finishing his secondary education at Robert College and going on to Istanbul University. His interest in theater took hold as a student, when he performed with the amateur troupe Genç Oyuncular despite his family's reservations, and in 1957 he became one of its founding members. Invited into professional theater by Muhsin Ertuğrul, he took his first professional role in "Çöl Faresi" at Kenter Theatre and, from 1959 onward, worked as both actor and director with Turkey's leading private theater companies.

In 1969 he founded Dostlar Tiyatrosu, which he led as artistic director for the rest of his life and which became a pioneering force in Turkey's political theater movement. In 1965 he adapted Nikolai Gogol's story into Bir Delinin Hatıra Defteri (Diary of a Madman), staged as Turkey's first Western-style, text-based one-man play; performed in three different interpretations over the years, the piece became inseparable from his name and earned him a reputation as the master of the solo play. He also adapted works by Aziz Nesin, Haldun Taner, Nâzım Hikmet, Behiç Ak and Yaşar Kemal for the stage, and narrated numerous pieces at symphonic concerts.

On screen, he won the Golden Orange for best actor twice at the Antalya Film Festival, for At (1982) and Faize Hücum (1982), and his role in the 1983 film A Season in Hakkari contributed to its Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. He also appeared in Camdan Kalp (1990) and Prensesin Uykusu (2010), and both starred in and directed Keşanlı Ali Destanı (1988). In 2021 he announced he was being prosecuted for insulting the president over tweets critical of the government. He died of leukemia in Istanbul on 31 July 2024 at the age of 86; in his memory, a stage in Eskişehir was named after him and the "Genco Erkal Emek ve Onur Ödülü" award was presented for the first time in 2026.