Oyun sıkıcı görünse de seyirci sonuna kadar kaldı.

Even though the play looked boring, the audience stayed until the end.

Breakdown of Oyun sıkıcı görünse de seyirci sonuna kadar kaldı.

• kalmak: to stay
• görünmek: to look
• kadar: until
• son: the end

Questions & Answers about Oyun sıkıcı görünse de seyirci sonuna kadar kaldı.

What does görünse de mean as a structure? Is it like “even though it seems”?

Yes.

görünse de = görünse + de

• görünse: conditional form of görünmek (“to seem / to appear”)
  • stem: görün-
  • conditional suffix: -se → görünse = “even if it seems / although it seems”
• de: a conjunction meaning “though / even though / even if” here.

Together, görünse de is best understood as:

• “even though (it) seems”
• “although (it) appears”

So the whole beginning Oyun sıkıcı görünse de = “Even though the play looks boring / Even if the play is boring (or seems boring) …”

Why is the conditional -se used in görünse if the play really was boring?

The conditional -se here is not about a real or unreal condition in time; it’s a very common way in Turkish to introduce a contrast, like “even if / even though”.

In many sentences of this type:

• -se
  • de is used for concessive meaning (concession = “X is true, but still Y happens”):
    • Hava çok soğuk olsa da dışarı çıkacağım.
      “Even if / although it’s very cold, I’ll go out.”

So:

• Oyun sıkıcı görünse de…
  doesn’t necessarily mean the speaker doubts it was boring.
  It’s functioning like an idiomatic “even though it (does / did) seem boring”.

The time reference of the whole sentence is anchored by kaldı (simple past). The subordinate clause with -se stays in a kind of “general / timeless” form but is understood in the same time frame:
“Even though the play seemed / was boring, the audience stayed …”