There is a haunting, lyrical quality to the four monologues spoken by three characters in Brian Friel’s memory play Faith Healer directed by Rachel O'Riordan in a stunning production at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Each occupies alone a minimal stage set speaking about the years they spent as a group of three (Frank, Teddy and Grace) touring the villages of Wales and Scotland followed by a fateful visit to Ireland.
The show opens with Frank (Declan Conlon) “mesmerically” reciting the names of the “dying Welsh villages” they tour with his faith-healing performance as the “Fantastic Francis Hardy”.
Although he admits that most of the time he appears before just a few “despairing people” who were “publicly acknowledging their desperation and the elimination of hope”, we do hear about a remarkable occasion in Glamorgan when, according to a newspaper report, ten people were cured in just a few minutes.
All three characters seem to be trying to escape past trauma, loss and tragedy. We will gradually hear about two such events, one taking place in the back of their touring van in a remote area of Scotland and another in the fictional Ballybeg in County Donegal.
The grieving Irish woman Grace (Justine Mitchell), daughter of a judge, sits at a table pouring herself repeated drinks as she recalls their travels and her devotion to her husband Frank, despite him mostly introducing her to people as his “mistress” and claiming she comes from somewhere in England.
Nick Holder gives an often comical, sometimes very moving performance as the brash cockney touring manager Teddy who begins his sequence with the romantic sounds of Jerome Kern’s “The Way You Look Tonight”, a record they played at every event.
Sitting in his London home drinking innumerable bottles of ale sometime after the events in Ballybeg, he initially reflects on entertainers by reference to anecdotes about dogs and pigeons before he more ominously takes us through his travels with Frank and Grace.
Frank will deliver the final monologue concentrating on what he refers to as his “homecoming” in Ballybeg.
Each of the three characters will tell us their version of events, sometimes adding to what we know, occasionally contradicting a significant point making us question what actually took place.
The actors give impressive performances in this deeply unsettling play about lost individuals in a troubled world.