Arts:Blog

Theatre Review: Faith Healer (****)

Michael Cox reviews a 'delicate treat' at the Lyceum.

Those looking for wiz bang theatrics might feel a bit cold towards the Lyceum’s production of Faith Healer—this is a production that, at its heart, is all about the spoken word. The play is a collection of three monologues (one of which is split to bookend the production), telling the story of three people: Frank-- a travelling faith healer, Grace -- his ‘mistress’ and Teddy -- his manager.

What might be lacking in visual theatrics is more than made up in performance and text. Patient audience members who pay attention will be greatly rewarded; each person remembers events differently, so the more you hear the less certain one is about facts and legend. How effective is Frank in his supposed healing? Who came up with which theatrical flourish? And what exactly happened in certain towns when Frank’s ‘healing’ didn't work?

Brian Friel’s play asks some terrific questions and is wonderfully written with passages of beauty, humour and, on occasion, cruelty. The juxtapositions of theatre and religion prove potent, drawing rather wonderful parallels about the importance of performance in both, and while the play never gives a satisfying answer as to how much of Frank’s act was an actual performance and how much he believed in his abilities, it does give a satisfying sense of closer for all three characters.

Director John Dove has stitched together a rather delicate chamber piece, quiet yet moving. He trusts his cast to each tell their stories without burdening them with

needless stage business. As with any pub story, the key lies in the pace of the telling, and all three actors tell their tales with great panache, even if all three are different in style and delivery.

Niamh McCann gives a wonderfully delicate performance as Grace, sympathetic but never weak, while Patrick Driver’s Teddy is a frantic and funny showman who breaks his mantra of never mixing business and friendship. However, the play hinges on Sean O’Callaghan’s Frank, who proves to be an intriguing enigma: do we the audience know or understand him anymore at the end than at the beginning? Perhaps not, which makes him, along with this production, all the more interesting.

Maybe Faith Healer would work just as well on radio as it does as a stage performance, but that doesn't take anything away from Friel’s writing or from Dove’s production. It's a delicate treat, but a treat nonetheless.

Faith Healer performs at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh until February 7.