Amongst several projects we’ve been working on, last year saw the staging of a new production by award-winning Turkish academic/playwright Deniz Başar and founder of the Toronto Laboratory Theatre Art Babayants. After receiving confirmed funding from the Cole Foundation, we are beyond excited to announce a Montreal remount of the critically acclaimed production of Wine & Halva in 2026 at Teesri Duniya’s Rangshala space.
Originally performed over two weeks at Espace La Risée in May of 2024, Wine & Halva created a “rare artistic and political choice for North American stages” (Övgü Ülgen) and a one-of-a-kind evening of theatre and conversation that garnered glowing reviews, sold-out shows and a META nomination for Outstanding Independent Production—and for good reasons. A one-of-a-kind piece of narrative theatre, Wine & Halva explores an unlikely friendship and how it grows across personal and cultural divides. Recounted by three narrators, the audience is presented with Farias, a white gay man struggling in a dead-end job, and Derya, a Turkish immigrant pursuing a PhD while navigating her new identity as a visible minority. As the audience follows them from their first contact while riding the subway in Berlin to their landing on a ferry in Istanbul, their friendship becomes an act of quiet resistance, revealing both tensions and shared joys that connect to and “question the relationship between [what] we did not have the courage to challenge before” (Övgü Ülgen).
With many conversations happening surrounding the topics of venues, returning team members and more, we’re happy to announce that Postmarginal will be once more co-producing the production alongside the Toronto Laboratory Theatre and Sort Of Productions. With the support of the Cole Foundation, we are curious to see this remount expand on their initial staging: one that, through a cabaret-style staging, created a space of familiar strangers who didn’t hesitate to talk with and learn about each other. With current support, we feel confident in the future of this production and look forward to once more offering this piece that “concretizes, sparks, [and] sets fire to positionality” (Scotty Gagnon).
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