The Cyprus Theatre Organisation presents from the Nicos Charalambous New Stage the production of Mother, by the renowned Lebanese-Canadian dramatist, director, and actor Wajdi Mouawad. This bittersweet, partly autobiographical tale is the last part of a trilogy that focuses on members of the author’s family, and is directed for the first time in Greek by the winner of the 2022 Thoc Grand Prize, Maria Mannaridou Karsera.

In Mother (2021), Mouawad makes us privy to his own experience, revisiting the topics of forced migration, the scars of war, and the complex ways in which events are filtered through memory. He plunges us into material mined from his past and distorted by time, straddling the border between fact and fiction as he foregrounds his mother’s response to armed conflict and the inevitable uprooting of his family.

He reminisces about their life in the Paris apartment where they stayed for five years at the end of the 1970s, having fled the Lebanese Civil War. His mother views it as a temporary refuge that she is desperate to leave. But as their return to Beirut is constantly postponed and their psychological wounds continue to grow, we see the effects on her young son. The play intertwines the tragedy of displacement with domestic strife, weaving a web of deeply personal questions about maternal love, loss, and the misery of war, but also about the vital force of human existence.

Maria Mannaridou Karsera approaches the play as an exploration of fragmented recollections through which the characters discover the limits of their endurance. Assisted by an exceptional cast and creative team, she negotiates the melding of personal and collective trauma, dream and reality, and past and present, inviting audiences on a poetic and emotional journey infused with nostalgia, humour and tenderness. It is an encomium to his mother, a paean to life, and a declaration of love for Lebanon and the country’s culture.

Performances

Thoc Theatre, Nicosia | Nicos Charalambous New Stage
From 10 January 2025
Every Friday, Saturday, 20:00 & Sunday, 18:00

Tour

Municipal Theatre Larnaka, Georgios Lykourgos | Wednesday 12 February, 20:30
Rialto Theatre, Limassol | Saturday 15 February, 20:30
Municipal Theatre Sotira | Wednesday 19 February, 20:30
Markidion Theatre Pafos | Friday 21 February, 20:30