"Kanlı Nigar" (Bloody Nigar), one of the classics of Turkish theater written by Sadık Şendil, made its US debut on Wednesday under the spotlights of Broadway in a Turkish-language production by the Turkish-American Art Society of New York.

The play, directed by famous stage actor Sönmez Atasoy, drew 1,500 theatergoers to its premiere at The Town Hall. The performance received a lengthy standing ovation from the audience, which mainly consisted of the Turkish community in New York and which also included Turkish screen actress Hülya Koçyiğit and pop singer Burak Kut, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Fadik Sevin Atasoy, whose latest screen credits include the films "Beyaz Melek" (The White Angel) and "Zeynep'in Sekiz Günü" (Zeynep's Eight Days), and Uğur Uğural, a New York-based Turkish actor-playwright-standup comedian, share the title roles in the production. The play, which screenwriter Şendil (1913-1986) adapted to modern-day theater, features an assemblage of the Ottoman period's folk culture and street performance acts and many characters from traditional Turkish theater, such as Hacivat and Karagöz.

Set in the late Ottoman Empire period in İstanbul, the play centers around an infamous woman called Nigar, a lady of one too many social skills and a matching number of enemies who are lined up to take revenge. Having survived a very traumatic childhood, Nigar grows up to demand the power that society once took away from her along with her innocence. The comedy unfolds when Nigar comes across a supposedly religious but increasingly unethical public figure, rents his house with a concealed identity and begins planning revenge on the men from her past.

Atasoy told reporters following the premiere that she was so thrilled that she was still quivering because it was not very common for an actor "to come across such a generous audience that embraces the actors onstage with applause and laughs" even in performances in his/her homeland. "Seeing a 1,500-seat hall on Broadway jam-packed with an audience who came to see your performance is probably the only thing that an actor would love to experience before he dies," she said.

The Society, established around a year ago by a group of New York-based Turkish artists, plans to stage "Kanlı Nigar" in other US locations, but no dates or venues have been announced yet.

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