Haunted Taxonomies, Converging Temporalities: Queer Ghosts on the Stages of Istanbul

Abstract Queer ghosts are haunting the independent stages of Istanbul. Trans sex workers, fallen angels, and pop icons who lost their lives are coming back to life, and they want more than a mourning. They want to educate the living, seek redress, complain, and imagine new social knowledges for the queers of the present time. This article offers a dramaturgical taxonomy of these queer ghosts by tracing what they are trying to enact through their refusal to leave the theatrical space. It takes four plays as case studies: Ufuk Tan Altunkaya’s 80ʹlerde Lubunya Olmak (Being a Queer in the 1980s, 2013), Ebru Nihan Celkan’s Uzaydan Gelen Prens (The Prince from Space, 2018), Özen Yula’s Yala ama Yutma (Lick but Don’t Swallow, 2010), and Ahmet Sami Özbudak’s İ z (The Stain, 2013). It argues that queerness on Istanbul’s independent stages reveals historical fatalities but also provides a glimpse of alternative ways of survival for the precarious.