The way to really understand an artist is not only by looking at what he does on stage. It is also necessary to weigh him/her by looking at what kind of person he/she is behind the stage.
I knew Haldun Dormen not only through his plays, his writings, the generations he raised. I got to know him from the days I worked as an usher in a theater when I was a law student at university in 1999-2000. I was an usher. I was a young, excited student, trying to hold on to life.
And every time that great name comes, he stops by, asks how we are, asks about our lessons, “How's school?” he would say. He did this not out of politeness, but because he was genuinely curious. He didn't look down. He did not keep his distance. He spoke with the warmth of a “human being”, not a “master”.
It was in those days that I learned this:
The first condition for understanding Haldun Dormen is to understand him as a human being first, not as an artist.
Because he had a stance free of arrogance, ego and artificial authorities. He was not one of those who tried to cover his greatness on the stage with human pettiness. On the contrary, he was one of the rare people who carried his greatness with his simplicity.
When I look back today, I see this very clearly:
What makes Haldun Dormen's theater valuable is not only his stage technique, his regime or the fact that he brought Western theater to these lands. His real difference lies in the fact that he sees art not as a field of superiority, but as a field of service.
When describing the last seventy years of Turkish theater, Haldun Dormen should be remembered not only as a director, an educator and an actor, but also as a cultural educator.
His stage is not a simple place of entertainment. It is an upbringing where people face themselves and society looks in the mirror.
While bringing Western theater to these lands, he did not imitate it; he adapted it. It did not break the memorization; it raised the taste. It did not surrender to populism; it did not fall prey to elitism. “High but achievable” built a line of art.
Dormen School did not only train actors; it raised an ethic. It passed down from generation to generation an understanding that punctuality is a virtue, work is an honor, and the stage is sacred.
His discipline is directly or indirectly behind many names that have left their mark on Turkish theater today.
But perhaps its greatest contribution is this:
He did not make art the servant of ideology. He did not turn art into a stepping stone to fame. He saw art as a way of human refinement.
Today, at a time when aesthetic poverty, unqualified production and noisy mediocrity are so common, the value of names like Haldun Dormen is better understood.
Because he walked in the footsteps of quality, not in pursuit of applause. Because he lived the stage not as a profession but as a life mission.
The real progress of a country is measured not only by its roads, bridges and buildings, but also by its stage, music and literature.
And in every quality stage, in every well-trained actor, in every measured line that still stands today, there is the silent signature of the man who asked us how we were that day.
Therefore, remembering Haldun Dormen is not about praising an artist. It is to defend an understanding of humanity and culture.