Brian Friel’s landmark 1980 play Translations will receive its first ever production in Cyprus when it opens at the Main Stage of the Cyprus Theatre Organisation in Nicosia on 28 March, with the official premiere following on 4 April.
The production is directed and co-translated by Irish/Cypriot theatremaker Patrick Myles, with co-translation and associate direction by Andreas Tselepos, who also plays the role of Owen. It will be performed in both Cypriot Greek dialect and English, with Cypriot actors playing the Irish roles and British actors playing the English officers — a casting structure that allows, in the production’s own framing, linguistic hierarchy and political imbalance to play out live on stage.
Set in rural Donegal in 1833, the play follows a community confronting the arrival of British military surveyors tasked with translating Irish place names into English as part of a systematic mapping of the country. The traditional Irish educational system is simultaneously being replaced by an English-language national school system, and as names and landscapes are reclassified, the community faces the irreversible alteration of its world.
Myles and Tselepos said Cyprus’s own history gave the play immediate contemporary relevance. “Cyprus’s modern history has been shaped by British colonial rule and the division of the island in 1974, following the Turkish invasion,” they said. “The continuing presence of British Sovereign Bases and Turkish troops gives the play’s themes of territory and sovereignty a contemporary relevance for Cypriot audiences, and the questions that Friel asks around language, memory and belonging will resonate in a country still marked by competing names and identities.”
The production runs until the middle of May 2026. Performances on Friday 24 April in Nicosia and Friday 15 May in Limassol will be surtitled in English and Turkish.
The cast includes Alexia Alexi, Graham Butler, Andreas Daniel, Nigel Hastings, Semeli Kyriazi, Marina Mandri, Andreas Papamichalopoulos, Giorgos Mouaimis, Michalis Moustakas and Andreas Tselepos.
