The Limassol Theatre Development Company (ETHAL) and Point To Contemporary Theater present The Island, an original play by Achilleas Grammatikopoulos and Michalis Kolokotronis, directed by Grammatikopoulos. Combining historical research and fiction, the play is based on real events and recorded testimonies, illuminating the collective trauma of contemporary Cypriot society and focusing on issues of memory, identity, coexistence and reconciliation.

Andreas and Ibrahim live two entirely different lives in terms of their identities, experiences, and beliefs. One is a Greek Cypriot farmer and a Christian, the other a Turkish Cypriot teacher and a Muslim.

Yet in the Cyprus of 1955-1959, when the island was under British colonial rule, the two men end up being held in the same cell. Andreas is accused of involvement in the armed struggle of EOKA (the National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters), and Ibrahim of an attack on a police officer during a demonstration in favour of the partition of the island. The colonial authorities lock them up together in the hope of extracting confessions – or even driving them to kill one another.

However, their forced proximity gradually transforms their relationship. Through the violence of interrogations, the silence of isolation, and the shared experience of incarceration, the two men are forced to confront their certainties and prejudices, and the wounds they bear.

Without seeking to offer a history lesson, the play creates a space for a theatrical dialogue to emerge around memory, identity, and the acceptance of the Other, raising the enduring question of how competing claims to justice can be resolved.