Biographie
Ugur Uludag, born in 1971, co-founded the Institute of Wisecrack Standards (IWS) with Gokhan Semiz in 1990. After graduating from the Mujdat Gezen Art Center in 1995, he began his professional career with IWS. Uludag, whose work is featured on the global playwrights' website, has contributed to numerous successful projects as a playwright, actor, and director. He has also appeared in various TV commercials, music videos, TV series, and films. His stage plays have earned him multiple awards. Currently, he is working on his third film, which is set to be shot in Los Angeles.
Since 1995, Ugur Uludag has been teaching psychodrama at an art school and founded Cartoon Theater to explore a new comedic style. The term "Cartoon" refers to the dramatic structure and aesthetics of animated cartoons. However, this definition alone is insufficient and risks reducing the concept to the conventional notion of theater. Cartoon Theater presents characters with full dimensionality, reflecting real life by showing variations over time. The story continues despite characters' internal contradictions in behavior. In this approach, the text serves as the core material. Characters embody psychological, sociological, and physiological aspects, which must be expressed in the text, direction, and acting style to reveal the alienation of human existence in its full tragicomic complexity.
Cartoon Theater is fundamentally rooted in Stanislavski’s drama and dramatic structure. Building upon Meyerhold’s ideas, it embraces the concept of comedy—"Cartoon" first defines the dramatic structure using its own alienated rules, then subverts it through unique methods. This destruction of the dramatic structure is essential to fulfilling Cartoon’s purpose. Initially, viewers familiar with classical Turkish theater may resist or reject this unfamiliar style, even as they attend performances created in this manner. This resistance embodies the essence of Cartoon: a steadfast commitment to new rules that disregard all existing conventions of theater and life.
