"Faith Healer" Reverberates With the Power of Language

Faith Healer

By Brian Friel

Director, Nora Hussey; Set Design, Dahlia Al-Habieli; Lighting Design, Ken Loewit; Production Management & Sound Design, John Doerschuk; Stage Management, Nerys Powell; Master Electrician, Julie Remele; Technical Directors, Dahlia Al-Habieli and Ken Loewit

CAST (in order of appearance): Frank, Diego Arciniegas; Grace, Susanne Nitter; Teddy, Gabriel Kuttner

Performances through November 22 at Plaza Black Box Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston

Box Office 617-933-8600 or www.publicktheatre.com

Faith Healer by Brian Friel, which concludes the Publick Theatre's 38^th season, is a collection of four monologues detailing the contrasting memories of a traveling Irish healer, his long-suffering wife, and his dedicated business manager. Diego Arciniegas, Susanne Nitter, and Gabriel Kuttner offer forceful and intense performances that grip the audience and don't let go even when the lights come up and the applause dies down. The playwright demands that the audience provide the plot and he leaves us with questions that do not have straightforward answers.

Depending upon your point of view, Francis "Frank" Hardy is either a quasi-successful healer or a con artist. His manager Teddy tells with awe of one night when he healed ten people in a church hall in Wales, but the underlying thread in the story is the mercurial nature of his gift. Frank has major mood swings as he struggles with this subject, often drinks too much, and behaves boorishly to his wife and manager. Grace is unwavering in her love for Frank and accepts his poor treatment as a trade-off for how lucky she feels to be with him when things are going well. The three motor about the countryside in a van through Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, finding the blind, the crippled, and otherwise disabled in pubs, drafty halls, and churches. We don't actually see any of these people or places, but Friel's artistry is his evocative language that paints beautiful, detailed pictures of every stop and circumstance along the way.

Arciniegas, Nitter, and Kuttner masterfully deliver his words in rhythmic, flowing patterns that are almost musical to the ear. The Irish lilt and, in the case of Teddy, the clipped Cockney accent, are organic in Faith Healer, not unlike the cadence of language in Shakespeare. So much of what the actors do is simply vocalized, conveying emotions by a change in tone or a pause or cry. Despite the fact that it is all talking and telling, the play is riveting. Arciniegas inhabits the character of Frank as he paces across the stage, looks to the heavens, or crouches in a corner. Nitter is appropriately shaky and wan as Grace trying to recover from her emotional breakdown. Kuttner (who brings to mind a younger Michael Caine) nervously paces and swigs from a succession of beer bottles, garnering the courage to tell his version of the events and admit his feelings for Grace.

Director Nora Hussey successfully accepts the challenge of the playwright's minimal stage directions and allows the actors to stay in one position long enough to set a mood, but not so long as to induce boredom or cobwebs. She understands that Friel's language is powerful and trusts in the ability of her cast to be the vessels through which it flows. The set design by Dahlia Al-Habieli is also minimal for each character - a wooden plank floor and stool before a fabric drop announcing "The Fantastic Francis Hardy - FAITH HEALER - one night only" for Frank's scenes; an easy chair and a small stack of books under a side table with a whiskey bottle, glass, and ashtray for Grace's monologue; a red leather armchair, a wooden chest for the beer, and an empty dog-basket for Teddy's turn. Ken Loewit's lighting design employs cold, harsh overhead spots to accentuate the discomfort that each of the characters seems to feel in his or her own skin.  

This season at the Publick Theatre has been dedicated to exploring the role of the artist in society, beginning with Tom Stoppard's Travesties last spring and The Seagull (Chekhov) and Hay Fever (Coward) on the banks of the Charles River during the summer. According to Artistic Director Diego Arciniegas, "Faith Healer represents the most spiritual aspects of the artistic process and fittingly rounds out the season." Whether or not Hardy is a healer, he is a charismatic showman who can be both self-aggrandizing and self-doubting, and, in the eyes of his flock, either a hero or a bum. His art has the power to heal or destroy him, as well as those around him. At the end of the play, once again, it depends upon how you look at it.