One of William Shakespeare’s greatest and most riotous comedies, Twelfth Night, returns to the Main Stage of the Cyprus Theatre Organisation (THOC), thirty-one years after its first staging, in a stimulating new interpretation by British Shakespearean director Owen Horsley.

In Illyria, in Olivia’s once cheerful and glamorous—now faded—seaside bar, Viola is shipwrecked. Believing her twin brother to be lost, she disguises herself as a man and enters the service of Duke Orsino. From this point on, the threads of a complex and tangled story begin to unravel, full of misunderstandings and subversive turns: Viola is secretly in love with Orsino; he loves Olivia, who mourns her lost brother; and Olivia falls in love with Cesario—that is, Viola. The intoxication of love overtakes one character after another, and this new breath of life shakes the foundations of an otherwise melancholic community. A group of characters weaves plots, deceives, and indulges in games, revealing the seductive yet dark side of erotic transformation.

Owen Horsley’s adaptation blends sorrow and joy into a comic and eccentric creation, where language has two faces, sometimes serving truth and sometimes falsehood. Horsley orchestrates a team of talented actors and collaborators around the playwright’s imaginative material, in which movement, music, and song resonate with the antics and emotional turbulence of the characters. The romantic story of disguises, cross-dressing, and fluid identities is transformed into a splendid celebration of love, overflowing with passion, sensitivity, mystery, laughter, tears, irony, and madness

Performances

Nicosia
THOC Theatre, Main Stage “Evi Gavrielides”
From 6 February 2026