Faith Healer

by Brian Friel

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 1 August 2016

Directed by Lyndsey Turner and designed by Es Devlin, this production features Stephen Dillane as Frank, the faith healer, Gina McKee as his partner Grace and Ron Cook as Teddy his manager.

The play consists of four monologues given by Frank, Grace, Freddy then Frank again, each actor alone on the stage in a different setting, each recounting directly to the audience some episodes from Frank's itinerant journeys around Wales, Scotland and Ireland as a faith healer who occasionally (but not often) effects cures.

It is an extraordinary theatrical device, removing the usual situation in which characters on stage can interact with one another, and instead relying on extended reminiscence to reveal both character and narrative. Matters are further complicated by the fact that the accounts of the three speakers differ so markedly in some details that it is impossible to know exactly what happened; or rather, it becomes necessary for the audience to include these contradictions in its assessment of the characters and their experiences. Although the general shape of the 'story' seems relatively clear, the different accounts of it are impossible to reconcile with absolute finality.

On entering the auditorium, the audience finds the stage concealed by black drapes in front of which torrential rain is falling. At the beginning of each monologue, the rain stops, the drapes are raised, and the speaker is revealed in his or her setting. At the end, the drapes are dropped and the rain starts again (falling throughout the interval). Frank speaks first, listing the names of various Welsh villages through which he has travelled. Immediately the incantatory style sets up an expectation that he must be listened to closely, and Stephen Dillane's measured, occasionally wry tones invite us into his confidence, rendering the curious nature of his gift almost plausible, the reasons for the avoidance of England quite straightforward, the reluctance to return to Ireland understandable. 

However, as soon as Grace begins speaking in her London bedsit, doubts about Frank's veracity arise. Why does she speak with an Irish accent when he has claimed that she comes from Yorkshire? And then, the whole tenor of the episode in northern Scotland is completely different, and the account of the trip to Ireland is not just seen from another point of view, but contains materially different details. Gina McKee speaks at times carefully, at times confidently; it is clear that Grace has been traumatised and is still extremely fragile. She too uses the seductive lists of the Welsh villages but they are a steadying device as she circles around the catastrophe that has hurt her so badly.

Teddy's account, delivered in masterly Cockney style by Ron Cook, calls into question not only Frank's story, but also Grace's. As the manager of various artistes - none of whom amount to very much really - he has the admirable principle that friendship should not cloud a professional relationship, but it soon becomes clear - though he never admits it in so many words - that he has failed to observe this rule in the case of Frank and Grace.

What becomes clear, even though we have seen no-one interact with anyone else, is that all three have misunderstood one another - or have chosen to ignore what they did not want to see - with disastrous consequences. The three actors have revealed this sorry situation with masterly attention to detail, involving the audience in an unusually intense relationship with characters whose frailty and tragedy are made plain through what they say as much as through what they are unable to admit.

It's an extremely stimulating and thought-provoking night at the theatre.