From 10 to 17 September, for a third year, the National Theatre of Greece is jointly organising Cypriot Theatre Week with the Department of Contemporary Culture of Cyprus’s Deputy Ministry of Culture and the Cyprus Centre of the International Theatre Institute (CCITI), with the support of the House of Cyprus Cultural Centre in Athens. Three hit productions seen in Cyprus in 2024 will take to the stages of the Ziller Building, with the aim of promoting contemporary Cypriot theatre in Greece, encouraging Cypriot producers to be more outward looking, and creating a fruitful artistic dialogue between the two countries. 

This year’s event kicks off with Satiriko Theatro’s production of From My mother’s womb by the award-winning Cypriot writer Costas Mannouris, directed by Varnavas Kyriazis.

Despite their advanced age, twin siblings Spilios and Christini are still running the haberdashery left to them by their father, and have made not a single change to it since he died. What demand is there nowadays for threads, needles and lace, though? Scarcely any. They keep it open out of a sense of duty towards their late father, but this means that they themselves are unable to move on. Today, however, a Thursday like any other – and for the most trivial of reasons – everything that they have stayed silent about since childhood will finally be articulated.

The play deals with lifelong oppression; crimes both great and small committed against two siblings – and not just siblings, but twins – in the name of love. All of which unfolds within the ironic context of a light comedy.

The distinguished actors Despoina Bebedeli and Varnavas Kyriazis are at the height of their powers, humorously, sensitively and precisely conveying the profundity and human truth that emerge from age-old ties of blood.

Director’s note
Set in a long-gone era, the issues raised by From My mother's womb – the existential disorientation that results from family relationships and the quest for true adulthood – are very much of today. The play not only challenges the sanctity of the family and criticises how it hobbles its children, but also touches on the personal responsibility of those who surrender without a fight to its control.

We are (or want to be) free to live as we wish. This freedom, though, comes with one important condition: we must be prepared to assume full responsibility for managing our lives.

A twin brother and sister, as close as two unmarried people can be, are caught between the future and the past, comically reflecting on their time left on earth while looking back on a life hardly lived – like a pair of armchairs that have aged while still wrapped in the plastic coverings of their youth. They travel from sadness and melancholy to joy and acceptance, from anger and disappointment to relief and peace, every moment marked with the complexity of the two characters, the play confirming the richness of human experience while probing the dark corners of the soul. As echoes from the past disrupt the silence of an embalmed life, the umbilical cord is finally cut, leading to a wholly unexpected ending.

Finally, as if it needs to be said, it has been a privilege for me to share the stage with Despoina Bebedeli.

Varnavas Kyriazis