THREE SISTERS

Alchemy Theatre, Paris

Théâtre de l’Opprimé, Paris 12

9 to 14 December 2025

The great Irish playwright Brian Friel was often referred to as ‘Ireland’s Chekhov’. That description emanated from his sympathetic engagements with a number of the works of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov, including his translated versions of Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters.

Similar echoes of isolation, loneliness, family conflict and the disintegration of a long-established way of life can be found in several of Friel’s own plays – most notably The Home Place, Aristocrats and, in its own way, Dancing at Lughnasa – which resonate with Irish musicality and melancholy, closely aligned in spirit with Chekhov’s original 19th century dramatic vision.

Now Paris has its own Irish Chekhov in the shape of Belfast actor/writer Hannah Coyle. Her lyrical, warm-hearted version of the classic memory play Three Sisters breathes renewed energy into the rapidly vanishing life choices of the once-affluent Prozorov family, Olga, Masha, Irina and Andrey.

Alchemy Theatre’s bright, stylish production, sensitively directed by Stuart McDougall, focuses on two central themes – the passage of time and its effects on the frustrated dreams of three young women, trapped in narrow, provincial social mores and lofty familial expectations.

Anthea Freya Hill’s set captures the fading grandeur of a country residence, where the offspring of a deceased, distinguished army officer have spent much of their lives. Until now, time has stood still around them, but gradually the troubles and tribulations of the outside world are closing in, while the prospect of a return to the bright lights of Moscow grows ever more distant. Inside the gloomy house, there are clocks everywhere – clocks of every shape and size, underlining a nagging sense of time ticking by uncontrollably on unfulfilled individual lives.

Coyle’s choice of Three Sisters is an effective vehicle for this female-led, Paris-based company. McDougall has put together an intriguing, well-structured cast of international players: New Zealander Hill is heartbreaking as discontented, unhappily married Masha, shedding tears that seem to come from the very depths of her soul. Her emotional attachment to the dashing Colonel Alexander Vershinin, played with straight-backed gravity by South African Ryan Napier, carries a palpable whiff of risk and danger.

Australian Claudia Talbot is an emotionally fragile, insecure Irina, the baby of the family, caught up in romantic notions which her aristocratic suitor, Anglo-French Tancrède Hollington’s diffident Nicolas Tuzenbakh, is ill-equipped to satisfy.

Coyle exerts a reassuring presence as Olga, the practical oldest sister, constantly putting the needs of others before her own, while suppressing a painful shared truth with Dareos Khalili’s needy Theodore Kulygin, Masha’s adoring husband.

Hill, Talbot and Coyle forge a triangular relationship which feels completely natural and instinctive, whether sharing private jokes, tenderly healing one another’s wounds or relentlessly teasing their feckless brother Andrey, played with self-destructive, pent-up energy by Franco-American William Boutet. The single thorn in their collective flesh is Andrey’s flashy, uneducated wife Natasha, whom French actress Marie Gouault – also responsible for the well coordinated costumes – endows with a strangely magnetic allure.

Irish actress Mia Leahy takes ownership of the role of the faithful servant Anfisa with ease, combining irrepressible fun and mischief with vulnerability, as the years start to exert their toll. She crafts a touching partnership with her old pal, the drunken doctor Roman Chebutykin, truthfully portrayed by American actor KJ Dwyer as a jaundiced, world-weary man, failed by life – and failed in life.

The final member of the dramatis personae is invisible but omnipresent. Jonathan Aréna’s score not only occupies the space, but leads the action from one scene to the next, changing the mood and capturing the atmosphere in the room.

This ambitious, pleasingly satisfying undertaking represents a bold move forward for a company which is steadily building a strong following in the French capital, with a burgeoning canon of fresh, socially aware, anglophone work.