The Nicosia International Festival (NIF) has plenty in store for its new edition and performances have already begun. Its next production brings a staged reading of Dionysios Solomos’ masterpiece The Woman of Zakynthos to a quaint old Nicosia venue.

Briefly leaving the theatre doors and big stage behind, the festival relocates to Erma Bookshop & Literary Café for this next performance on September 17 and 18. Directed by Antigoni Gyra, the staged reading will be presented three times – once at 8pm on the first night and twice on September 18 (8pm and 11pm).

Written in 1826, during the Greek War of Independence, The Woman of Zakynthos is one of the most significant works of modern Greek literature and among the most enigmatic and daring texts by Dionysios Solomos.

Through the first-person narration of a monk, the poet portrays an upper-class woman who embodies malice, intolerance and moral decay, directing her hatred towards the women refugees from Missolonghi, the struggling Greek nation and the revolutionary cause itself. Nearly two centuries later, Solomos’ unfinished work continues to resist definitive interpretation while retaining its striking contemporary resonance.

Director and choreographer Antigoni Gyra uses The Woman of Zakynthos as a point of departure, weaving together excerpts from The Free Besieged and The Poisoned Womanwith contemporary voices drawn from the creators’ personal memories, texts by journalist Konstantinos Poulis, and original music by rapper Anser.

The two performers follow the rhythm of Solomos’ language with their entire bodies; they sing, shift roles and guide the audience through a journey between poetry, memory and storytelling both spoken and embodied. The result is a staged reading that transcends the act of reading itself, transforming into a performative event that resonates effortlessly with the present day, illuminating, with both humour and sorrow, enduring questions of power, violence, injustice and human cruelty.

The production was warmly received by audiences during its two runs in Athens.

The Woman of Zakynthos

Antigoni Gyra directs a staged reading of Dionysios Solomos’ masterpiece. Part of the Nicosia International Festival. September 17-18. Erma Bookshop, Nicosia. 8pm (and 11pm on Friday). €20. In Greek. www.nif.cy