Matomena Stefana

"Matomena Stefana" by F.G. Lorca, in the Cypriot dialect

185 ETHAL productions and continuing the successful collaboration with

Point To Contemporary Theater and Anyhow Theatre Ensemble

“What does not come into consciousness returns as fate.” Carl Jung

The production "Matomena Stefana", an adaptation of F. G. Lorca’s "Bodas de Sangre", one of the greatest works of world theatre, is the second part of a trilogy that began with "The Island" and deepens ETHAL’s 2025-2026 theme "Language, communities, communication, dialogue, multiculturalism and collective memory." The action is transferred to a mixed village in Cyprus in the early 1960s, where love and death meet political and social division. Through the words of Federico García Lorca, the play converses with the history, memory and wounds of the place.

This adaptation seeks to illuminate Cyprus’s complex identity at a time when love, honour and blood acquire tragic topicality. The production brings to the stage actors from both communities, able to move between realistic and lyrical writing, conveying the conflict through physicality, silence and song. Actors with exceptional skills in voice, movement and speech, essential for creating the lyrical, uncanny and metaphysical moments of the performance.

Matomena Stefana is not simply a Cypriot version of Lorca; it is an act of cultural reconciliation. Through love and death, the work becomes a bridge between two communities and two languages. The Cypriot rendition of Lorca’s tragedy captures the past, dialogues with the present and envisions a future where, perhaps, the “blood-stained crowns” may become crowns of peace again.

The Plot:

The story is set in the Cypriot countryside, shortly after Independence. A wedding between two families of different ethnic origin becomes a field of conflict, love and blood.

The Mother, marked by the murder of her husband and younger son by the Demir family, gives her blessing for her eldest son to marry. Soon she learns that the Bride had been engaged to Kenan, a relative of the Demir family, who is tied to the old blood feud between the two families.

Shortly before the wedding, Kenan meets the Bride and confesses his desire. She refuses him, yet continues to harbour feelings for him. On the night of the wedding, during the celebration, it is revealed that the two of them ran away together. The Groom, blinded by rage, pursues them ……