When I graduated from department of acting in 1984, Genco Erkal offered me the role of Zeynep Irgat- who was abroad that season- in Galileo Galilei which was already being performed in Dostlar Tiyatrosu for some time.

In the eve of a profession, this was beyond dreams of a young actor and a marvelous start which was too good to be true. It was exhilarating to be part of one of the most brilliant plays of Dostlar Tiyatrosu which had a cast of master artists such as Genco Erkal, Mehmet Akan, Zihni Küçümen, Güler Ökten and more; yet it was also somewhat unnerving and difficult to be later included in a play which already had a registered success and a finalized stage direction.

Before the cast arrived at brush up rehearsals after the summer break, I worked with my partner in the play Nejat Yavaşoğulları who had also composed the musics and we together played and performed the songs. And finally the day had arrived for the whole cast rehearsal. The cast, which was comprised of actors whom I had known only by name and seen on stage, arrived at the rehearsal in Baro Han which was Dostlar Tiyatrosu’s prior old stage. A cheerful, vibrant huge cast.

Later, Genco and an actor whom I had seen for the first time went on stage.
Silence...

Then a sentence which was articulated sound by sound just created a common world that took us all inside like velvet: ‘’The line that divides the dark side of the moon and bright side is not clear’’.

I later on learned out that this lean figured actor was Macit Koper, whom I witnessed how he grew and seized the whole stage and the audience. I very much wanted to be able to write in order to make this kind of a line be heard, the opening line of the first scene of the play whom I had memorized by heart throughout the whole season behind the curtain.

By 1986, I already knew Macit Koper when I played ‘The Woman Arriving on the Delayed Ankara Train’ in ‘Motherland Hotel’ of Omer Kavur’s. But he managed to surprise and enchant me once again, as well as everyone else watching him and revealed how he played with an unseizable creativeness specific to him only.

It was as if ‘Zebercet’ was a character which was created for him to play.

As I played along with Macit in Ömer Kavur’s ‘Night Journey’ and ‘Journey on the Hour-hand’, or as I watched him all these years on stage and on screen, this sense of exciting surprise lasted without a decline.

As you’re watching him, above all you are honored as a human being, fascinated by his intelligence, creativeness, talent, approach to arts and the profession; he is a unique source of inspiration for his fellow actors, audience and for Turkish theatre and cinema.

Thank You Macit Koper.
-Şahika Tekand