Ion
By Euripides

One of the most enigmatic cases of ancient Greek dramaturgy, Ion defies clear classification. It is not a “pure” tragedy, as it teeters between the tragic and the comic, myth and realism, mysticism and scepticism, always stirring issues of identity and belonging. Moreover, it is a work that appears to converse directly with present-day experience, in an era where everything seems to be under constant consideration and renegotiation.

The action transpires within the sacred oracle of Apollo at Delphi, a site that constitutes a threshold between the sensed and the invisible, the public and the private. There, the young Ion grows up nameless, with his true origins unbeknownst to him. He struggles to put together a sense of identity through fragments, even as the audience already knows the truth. Through contradictions, refractions, and misinterpretations, an obscure and nearly invisible past crystallises into a solid, tangible present, while an anticipation of meaning rises through the void.

The play, a production of the Cyprus Theatre Organisation under the direction of Thomas Moschopoulos, attempts to foreground the playful and ambiguous spirit of the work, transforming the stage into a multi-prismatic space of contemplation, where the reflections of truth and falsehood overlap – revealing and concealing one another – while the question of identity gapes wide open, fluid, and agonising.