Playmill: A Tree Called Max – Staged Reading

In a small garden in western Turkey, Berker and Elif meet for the first time. Elif just buried their dad and Berker missed it. The two couldn’t be more different: Elif, like the trees she so diligently cares for, is rooted, serious, pensive. Berker is flighty – the kind of guy that makes a joke out of everything. Her English isn’t great. He doesn’t speak Turkish. Meaning is made in the gap between translation. Against the backdrop of 2016’s major political events in Turkey and Britain, the pair work to save the family restaurant, stand up for what they believe in, and make sense of their history. Cracks begin to show as the past comes to haunt the present.

A Tree Called Max is a rehearsed reading of a play about the search for a home, and the things we inherit. It is an urgently political story about immigration, diaspora, and hope in the face of major political events.