Dublin Theatre Festival 2025: Three Sisters

Three Sisters. Image, Ros Kavanagh

****

Mr Byrnes famously exclaimed in The Simpsons, after Marge painted a portrait of him nude, ‘I don't know if it's art, but I don't hate it’. Something similar might be said of Ciara Elizabeth Smyth's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters. Do we know if it’s Chekhov? The Russian writer’s 1900 tale of the three Prozorov sisters living a country life of busy banality is dry dramedy. Smyth the ideal person to adapt given both writers share an absurdist sense of understated humour. But then, you might also think, I don't know if it's Ciara Elizabeth Smyth. Exposition is clunky, passages overstay their welcome, and Smyth’s effortless blend of comedy and tragedy seems separated into conflicting energies. Yet perhaps the issue lies elsewhere, like director Marc Atkinson Borrull. Who conceived the current adaption along with designer, Molly O’Cathain and Smyth. Directing Three Sisters in large, broad strokes as a play of opposing halves. The first a high blown 70s sitcom of long suffering women and hapless men who believe themselves geniuses hard done by. The second a soap opera of melodramatic proportions. Like Fawlty Towers meets Eastenders, the twain never convincingly merge, leaving cast often looking hamstrung or adrift. Even as the solution was right there in plain sight.

Meghan Cusack and Breffni Holahan in Three Sisters. Image, Ros Kavanagh

A parade of parties, soldiers, fires and farewells begins with Breffni Holahan’s Olga jumping up as if her caffeine just kicked in. Wide eyed, wildly delirious, Holahan is hilarious as the oldest sister cawing about returning to Moscow with its parties and fresh beginnings. Rattling on to Máiréad Tyers' flower arranging Irina whose birthday it is, the youngest sister sharing her day with the anniversary of their father’s death. Bored, glum, buried in her book, Megan Cusack’s marvellous middle sister Masha is married to the monotonous, moustached Kulygin. Cameron Tharmaratnam’s monument to banality one of many characters reduced to comic book caricatures. Along with Noelle Brown’s Anfisa, essentially a doddery Mrs Doyle, and Alex Murphy’s hopeless Andrew, a hen pecked musician. Throw in Terence Keeley’s cologne loving Solyony, Darragh Feehely’s procrastinating Tuzenbakh, Michael Tient and Marty Breen’s soldiers, and Fionn Ó Loingsigh’s commander Vershinin, he of the suicidal wife, and who can blame her, and Three Sisters’ cast of comic, though not complex characters is complete. Barring sensitive outsider, Natasha. Saoirse-Monica Jackson as the anxious wife of Andrew who worms her way into becoming the family matriarch. Deliberately or by dint of circumstances? Now it’s getting interesting. Jackson, along with Lorcan Cranitch as Chebutykin, a doctor of questionable skill, fleshing characters with greater depth and ambiguity. Jackson sensational in a richly nuanced performance where comedy often cries and tragedy frequently laughs.

Saoirse-Monica Jackson in Three Sisters. Image, Ros Kavanagh

Visually, it was an easy day at the office for O’Cathain whose blue curtained walls with long table doesn’t tax, or assist, the imagination. Even if a superb fire effect is impressive to behold. Compensating for John Gunning’s descending light rig that feels like a military interrogation. A visual flip into a black box space where cast sit as if watching rehearsals confirms what some might have begun to suspect; that this production needs more time to get to the soul of things. The final, crucial encounter with Irina and Tuzenbakh feeling hollowed out of humour, drama and tragedy, even as the impressive Tyers and Feehely come close, with an unexpected kiss adding layers of ambiguity. Of which Chekhov and Smyth are masters, and which will hopefully deepen as the run progresses. Fusing Three Sister’s divergent metals into a single, precious element, with Tyers and Feehely leading the way.

  Máiréad Tyers, Breffni Holahan and Meghan Cusack in Three Sisters. Image, Ros Kavanagh

What is it all for? Philosopher poets believing there has to be something better to life? Is it art? Is it Chekhov? It’s certainly not Chekhov forever linked with Stanislavski. Still, if it’s not classical Chekhov, you don’t hate it. Indeed, there is much to enjoy in Smyth’s ambitious reimagining, including the hope it might marinate into something luxurious. Like Jackson and Cranitch, whose exquisite performances are a joy to watch.

Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth, presented by Sugarglass and Once Off Productions, runs at The Gaiety Theatre as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2025 until October 12.

For more information visit Dublin Theatre Festival 2025