Galway actress Siobhán O’Kelly told David Hennessy about returning to Brian Friel’s classic Dancing at Lughnasa and finally making it to Manchester’s Royal Exchange.
Siobhán O’Kelly plays Margaret in the production of Dancing at Lughnasa which has just played at The Crucible in Sheffield before it transfers to the Royal Exchange in Manchester.
Siobhán’s screen credits include Bad Sisters, The Tourist and Irish language film Arracht.
Dancing at Lughnasa represents a return to the stage for her after relocating to Ireland after years in London and a period of doing mostly screen projects such as BBC’s Mixtape. She will also soon be seen in Lisa McGee’s How to Get to Heaven From Belfast.
The production is also the debut piece of Elizabeth Newman, the recently appointed Artistic Director at Sheffield Theatres who was recently interviewed in The Irish World.
Dancing at Lughnasa centres around the five Mundy sisters who, living together on the outskirts of Ballybeg in Donegal, are bound together by responsibilities and social expectations.
None of the sisters are married and Christina is an unmarried mother which adds to their isolation.
When influences from a wider, more modern world creep into their home, the sisters are swept along in a sea of change and suddenly the life they know is gone for good.
Martha Dunlea plays Christina, Rachel O’Connell plays Rose, Laura Pyper plays Agnes and Natalie Radmall- Quirke plays Kate.
Kwaku Fortune plays Michael, the narrator who is a child at the time the story takes place.
Frank Laverty plays Father Jack who has just returned home from the missions in Uganda causing everyone to be concerned that he has ‘gone native’.
Marcus Rutherford plays Gerry, the mostly absent father to Christina’s son.
Siobhán took time out, when the play was still in rehearsals, to chat to the Irish World.
This is not the first time you have been part of a production of Dancing at Lughnasa, what is it like to return to it?
“It’s really interesting because I played Chrissy, the youngest sister, before and now I’m playing Maggie who is the second eldest.
“It’s so good to come back to it and it’s in me, the muscle memory of having played it before but now I’m playing it from a completely different point of view.
“I was 29 or 30 when I played it before and now I’m a mother and I have two small boys and much more life experience.
“I find it one of the saddest plays in the world, it’s also a beautifully humorous play.
“It’s the ordinariness of it.
“These women are entertaining women.
“They’re funny women but it is a deeply, deeply sad play.”
Yes, there is tragedy in the play and nowhere more so than in your character Maggie who has a sadness behind her façade for the dreams she has had to let go of..
“Absolutely.
“Maggie uses humour to deflect and to keep her sisters buoyant and to entertain essentially.
“But she also has beautiful moments in the play where she lets her own wants and desires out.”
Maggie has kind of taken on the role of mother, hasn’t she?
“She has.
“It’s interesting that you say that because the more we’re rehearsing, the more I realise Maggie is so maternal, she’s looking after them all.
“She’s the housekeeper.
“Actually I look at Chrissy, my youngest sister and I do feel terribly maternal towards her, and Rose as well.
“I joke in rehearsals and say that I’m Kate’s husband because when the other sisters aren’t in the room, Kate and Maggie have chats that they wouldn’t have in front of the other sisters.
“I feel Maggie is the kind of person- And I know so many women like this- Where they metaphorically put their arms around you when you come into the space.
“That’s who Maggie is: She warms you up with a hug or a joke.”
How are rehearsals going? Is there a lot of laughing and joking despite it being quite a sad play in some ways?
“Yeah, we’re a very happy company, I have to say.
“And that comes from Elizabeth Newman, our director.
“She’s very special and she has created an environment where you’re allowed play and you’re allowed to make choices and be brave and try things and you’re very, very supported.
“It’s the most wonderful rehearsal room I’ve ever been in, I have to say.”
That Elizabeth chose Dancing at Lughnasa as the first play of her time as Artistic Director shows something of her passion for it, doesn’t it?
“Yeah, she has a huge amount of passion for it.
“I think really what she’s saying is, ‘This is who I am. I want to work on great plays with a great story and with great actors in a great space’. And that’s what she’s doing so she’s starting with a bang.
“This play has everything.
“It has such heart, it has such tragedy, it has moments of real pleasure and then it goes a bit mad too, so it’s kind of got everything.
“I have to say it’s a lovely room to be in because everybody’s very experienced and has done loads of theatre and it’s lovely to be amongst a cast of such quality actors.
“It has been a very interesting process.
“I’ve never felt so brave in a rehearsal room and free.
“I’ve really pushed.
“I’ve really dug deep with Maggie more than I thought I would.
“I didn’t realise how integral Maggie was to the story.
“I didn’t realise how much Maggie holds the space metaphorically and physically.
“She keeps the ship on track and has to sit on a lot of her own emotions.”
Do you remember the reactions from the last time you were involved with this play? I ask because I imagine it always starts conversations..
“I think so.
“We always had people come up to us in the pub afterwards and say, ‘We had somebody like that in our family’. Or ‘I had an aunt/ uncle..’ ‘My father’s family…’
“It’s a very relatable piece even though it’s set in the 1930s and I think that’s what’s so brilliant about it.
“I think everybody will recognise themselves or somebody that they know in these characters.
“I think this production is particularly interesting because there’s been some brave choices with how we’re playing it.
“I think it’s going to be a very exciting production.
“I think people are going to come in and think, ‘Oh, this is nice, this is cozy’. And then..”
It’s not the Dancing at Lughnasa that they were expecting or have seen before…
“No, I think we’re tapping into the darkness of the play.
“I think it’s going to be a very special production.”
The sisters in the play are outsiders just for being unmarried or even unmarried mothers..
“Well, I think they made the decision to keep Michael.
“That was a massive decision and that alienated them from the community because having a child out of wedlock was really considered the most horrific thing in Catholic Ireland.
“And instead these women said, ‘We’re going to keep Michael and we will raise him together’.
“It’s so interesting because there’s so many parallels between Ryanga and the community there and these women.
“Father Jack talks about love children, that for Ryangan women to have loads of love children, children out of wedlock, is a blessing.
“And that’s what these women have. They have Michael, a love child.”
What other themes have come up in the rehearsals?
“We talked a lot about grief in the rehearsal room.
“I think Elizabeth’s really tapping into the into the grief of this play.
“And aging. We’re all aging.
“When Gerry Evans comes, there’s such hope.
“I suppose they’re all of a certain age. Do they still think that maybe they might meet somebody? Who knows? Do they still think they’ll bear a child? It’s desperately sad.”
It is so sad for being based on Friel’s own family. There is a poignance to it in the way even, isn’t there?
“Absolutely, that’s why it’s so truthful and why it’s so heartbreaking.
“You don’t need to look far.
“All the stories you need are around us.
“Everybody has a story, don’t they?”
The Father Jack character is important, isn’t it in that having a revered priest in the family gave them some leeway socially?
“Absolutely.
“I mean only for Father Jack, they would be really ostracised and I think because of Father Jack, they were able to keep Michael.
“Father Jack is their leverage.
“I think Michael says that it gives them a bit of notoriety or a bit of fame within the community because every now and again, there’s a piece written about the ‘leper priest’.”
The worry for the sisters is that when he comes home he isn’t what they expected. They fear their ‘protection’ could be deserting them..
“I think the sisters firmly believe that Jack will come back.
“He’ll say mass.
“He’ll become this beautiful, authoritative figure within the community.
“As a result of that, they will get out more.
“They will socialise more.
“You never know: They might meet a nice man.
“Jack coming back fills the house full of possibility and yet they get a real shock when Jack comes back because he’s not at all who they thought, he’s not at all what they expected.”
With the mix of joy and tragedy that the play is, is the mood as you’re working on it similarly up and down?
“Yes, I think I have cried a river in this rehearsal process, and yet I have also laughed and laughed and laughed.
“I’ve laughed so much, I’ve cried and I’ve cried so much that I’ve laughed.
“And actually, I think that’s what Friel writes.
“It’s just on the brink.
“It’s so sad, what can you do but laugh?”
You were based in London for a long time and finished your acting studies here, didn’t you?
“Yeah, I went to Guildhall School of Music and Drama and I had no intention of staying but then I signed with a really good agent and I was off.
“I spent years just working away and doing loads of touring and loads of plays.
“Then COVID happened and then we moved back to Ireland.
“interestingly since we moved back to Ireland, I have done nothing but telly, telly, telly.
“I’ve done a couple of plays but it’s been mainly television and film.
“I laugh and say that I’m a telly actor who wants to do theatre, mostly you have theatre actors wanting to do telly.
“But I love theatre so much.”
I saw you in Bad Sisters not so long ago, what was that like to be part of?
“I’m always getting told that I look like Sharon Horgan.
“My uncle, who lives in Brisbane, emailed my mother and said to her, ‘God, Siobhán is very good in Catastrophe, she’s brilliant’.
“I was like, ‘Hello, not me. Wish it was’.”
In that you played the wife of the character Cormac, played by Owen McDonnell who you would have acted with in various things like An Bronntanas..
“Yes, I worked with him on An Bronntanas and I worked with him on An Klondike so I know Owen quite well.
“He’s lovely.”
You just mentioned two Irish language projects and you did quite a lot with TG4 particularly starting out, didn’t you?
“Yeah, I come from Connemara and I started off my career as a 16-year-old in Ros na Rún.
“My contract was for 12 days.
“Four years later, I was still on it.
“Ros Na Rún put me through university.
“I will be eternally grateful for my Ros Na Rún education in television.
“I learned to work with multi cameras and loads of different directors and it was a brilliant experience.
“I was that college student that was never in college.
“I was always racing to get the taxi out to the studio.”
Did you always know you wanted to act or when did you know?
“It’s a funny thing.
“When we were younger, my sister said she wanted to be an actress and I wanted to do everything my sister said so as soon as she said she wanted to be an actress, I decided I did too.
“And it’s a funny thing because I would perform at home for my parents and my family but I wasn’t the type of child in school that was performing for everybody.
“I was shy enough in school but I was always messing at home.
“But I got a taste for it.
“I got a taste for it in my teens doing plays.
“I started young.
“Then I moved to Dublin and met other actors and they were always talking about their training and I thought to myself, ‘I’d like a bit of that’.
“So after university, I went to London to train for three years and I loved that.
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.
“When I left drama school, I wanted to work at Manchester Royal Exchange.
“I wanted to work at all the big theatres in the UK.
“Obviously I wanted to work in London too but I have always had my eye on Manchester Royal Exchange.
“I’m so thrilled now to be going to the Manchester Royal Exchange.
“I think this is the best job I’ve ever done.
“There’s something about being here in Sheffield.
“This theatre is incredible.
“It’s been such a collaborative experience.
“This project has come at the right time in my life.
“I really, really, really wanted to do a play.
“I’ve been doing a lot of telly over the last while and as much as I love being on set, I love the rehearsal process.
“I love the puzzle of putting a play together.
“I love the problem solving.
“It’s just been such a brilliant rehearsal process but it’s just also been a really collaborative experience.
“Elizabeth Newman is not the kind of director who says, ‘You have to come in that door’, ‘You have to sit on that line’.
“She’s completely free. She lets you decide, she trusts the actor completely which is so refreshing.
“I think she’s brilliant.
“I want all actors to work with Elizabeth Newman. I want all my friends who are actors to get the opportunity to work with her.
“I’m living away from my young family and I have to say that Sheffield Theatre has been hugely supportive of that.
“Elizabeth is a mother herself and she understands that I’ve had to go home for weekends.
“My four year old started school at the end of August and she let me take the day off so that I could be there for his first day of school.
“I think it’s really important to say that that’s how supportive that they are. I’ve never experienced that level of care on a job, and it’s really lovely.
“I think it’s commendable.
“I think she’s going to be a terrific artistic director here in Sheffield.
“When you have that support in your work, it makes all the difference.
“She keeps the lines of communication open all the time with the actors so there’s no time for anybody to get worried or anxious on their own, everything is discussed in the room and everything is open for discussion and it just means that nobody’s coming in with any kind of worries.
“It’s a really big deal for me to be away from my children for 13 weeks but the support from Sheffield has been unbelievable.”
You said you have done less theatre recently, would you like to do more in the near future?
“I would love to do more theatre afterwards.
“I’d love to work at the Abbey or the Gate, or somewhere in Ireland.
“That would be great.”
Dancing at Lughnasa is at the Royal Exchange in Manchester 10 October- 8 November, click here.