Euripides’ ancient Greek play Ion is to be presented by the Cyprus Theatre Organisation (Thoc) this summer, directed by Thomas Moschopoulos, as part of this year’s Athens Epidaurus Festival. Performances in Cyprus and Greece are set to take place this July and August.

Ion is considered one of the most enigmatic works of ancient drama, yet it is not the typical Greek tragedy as it exists on the threshold between tragedy and comedy, myth and realism, mysticism and scepticism. The play embodies questions of identity and belonging at its core, speaking directly to contemporary experience, in an era where everything is constantly being questioned and renegotiated.

Following his successful collaboration with Thoc last year on Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector, acclaimed and highly experienced director Moschopoulos returns both to the organisation and to the Athens Epidaurus Festival, offering a fresh interpretation of Euripides’ drama. His return marks yet another creative encounter with Euripides, a playwright whose works he has revisited many times in the past (The Bacchae, Alcestis, Iphigenia in Tauris).

In Cyprus, the production will premiere on July 16 and will travel to multiple locations, while the play will be part of the Athens Epidaurus Festival on August 28 and 29.

The action unfolds at Apollo’s sacred oracle in Delphi, a space that serves as a threshold between the visible and the invisible, the public and the private. There, the young Ion grows up nameless and unaware of his origins, struggling to piece together a coherent identity from fragments, while the audience already knows the truth. Through contradictions, distortions and misunderstandings, a blurred, almost invisible past gradually crystallises into a concrete and tangible present; an expectation of meaning emerges from emptiness.

The production aims to highlight the playful and ambiguous spirit of the work, transforming the stage into a multifaceted space for reflection, where images of truth and falsehood overlap, revealing and concealing at once, while the question of identity remains open, fluid and deeply unsettling.

Ion by Euripides

Greek ancient play by the Cyprus Theatre Organisation, directed by Thomas Moschopoulos. From July onwards, Cyprus. August 28-29, Athens. https://www.thoc.org.cy/