Sister Act

How’s this for a dream become reality? This time last year, Emily Taaffe was studying at The London Academy of Music and the Dramatic Arts – now, she is playing one of the central roles in Three Sisters at the Abbey Theatre. What’s more, this is not just any production of Chekhov’s masterpeice, but a version adapted by none other than master playwright Brian Friel.

“I keep pinching myself to make sure it’s true,” Emily says, during a break from rehearsals. “And if someone had said back at LAMDA this would happen, I would have said, ‘No, never!’ And the whole thing could be daunting if I sat down and thought about it, but right now I am just enjoying the rehearsal process so much, and the fact that we already have had five weeks working on this.
“But it has been great to have all that time because there is so much detail in the work, both in Chekhov and the Friel translation, which is absolutely wonderful. It’s really beautiful, and the way it’s written for the Irish accent is not cerebral, it’s accesible and very connected to the feelings, emotions and aspirations of all the characters. And because I have encountered Chekhov in different translations, I can say this is by far the most impressive version of his work ever. Sometimes Chekhov can be perceived as quite verbose and intellectual, whereas this is very earthy and you don’t realise you are being engaged in broad philosophical ideas.”
The three sisters in question are played, respectively, by Emily, Derbhle Crotty and Justine Mitchell. Emily’s role as Irina could be said to evolve, darken and deepen the most throughout the play, which tells of the sisters’ longing to return to Moscow, the place of their birth.
“Irina defintely does evolve during the play,” Emily agrees. “At the start, she is 20 and very much full of hope that herself and her two other sisters will return to Moscow. We left there when Irina was nine so she doesn’t really have many memories of the place as a reality, but Moscow represents romance and glamour and she is very eager to start her life anew there. Yet then, as the play progresses, she comes to terms with the realities of life. So her journey is from being a child to being a woman, and being an adult who has to deal with the fact that dreams don’t always come true, and that this can be quite a painful learning curve at times.”
Emily herself is 24 and can easily relate to the character she is playing.
“Doesn’t everybody have that period in their lives?” she says. “I remember wanting so much to go to university and start anew, and luckily enough I was able to do that, my ambitions weren’t thwarted. But I think everyone at one point feels they really want to start afresh, really live out some form of dream, so anyone can relate to Irina in this sense. And to what happens when reality bites.”
The challenge for everyone, surely, is to keep alive one’s romantic visions when reality does bite, isn’t it?
“Exactly,” says Emily. “There is a line in the play where the teacher says - I am paraphrasing here - ‘Resilience is the best feature of the human spirit.’ That is a through-line of the play, the capacity of the human spirit to endure. And that, to me, is one of the most hopeful messages the play has, that it is amazing what people can survive.”