BRIAN FREIL’S Faith Healer, widely acknowledged as one of his greatest works, arrives on the Town Hall stage at the end of this month in a stirring new production directed by Andrew Flynn and featuring Lalor Roddy in the title role.
The play introduces us to the enigmatic figure of Frank Hardy, faith healer. Together with his two travelling companions, partner Grace and cockney manager, Teddy, he roams the byways of Scotland and Wales healing the sick.
By the edge of forests, at the base of mountains, in remote coastal villages, the lame, the ill and the broken hearted gather in the hope of being cured by Frank’s mysterious gift. But who is Frank? Are his miracles real or imaginary? And what is the true price the saved must pay?
Haunting, tender and passionate, Faith Healer takes us into the heart of what it means to believe. As we are drawn deeper into the world of Frank and his companions, our certainties fall away as we are led towards the play’s magisterial, unforgettable, finale.
After rehearsals on Monday evening, director Andrew Flynn took time out to talk about this new production, and began by describing how it came about.
“Mike Diskin at the Town Hall approached me first,” says Andrew. “He was keen to put on a Friel play and Faith Healer is one I have long been interested in. It hasn’t been staged that often, maybe partly because Donal McCann was such a powerful presence as Frank when it was done by the Abbey in 1980.
“Mike and myself actually talked about doing it eight years ago but it didn’t happen at the time. In a way I’m glad it didn’t because coming to it now, I find the play speaks to me differently now I am eight years older.
“We’ve put together a strong cast and once the production started coming together we immediately started getting a lot of interest from other venues and we’ll be going on an extensive national tour after our Galway run taking in 17 or 18 venues.”
Andrew’s point about how seldom Faith Healer has been seen here is readily borne out; after the feted Abbey/Donal McCann staging, more than 20 years elapsed until its next Irish production, from Island Theatre Company in 2002, featuring Barry McGovern. Perhaps that staging helped dispel the ‘McCann aura’ and the past five years has seen the Gate Theatre twice produce the play, first with Ralph Fiennes in 2006, and then with Owen Roe in 2009.
Bearing in mind that the play’s premiere production, in New York in 1979, featured James Mason, it’s clear the role of Frank Hardy has always attracted top calibre actors. Flynn outlines the qualities Lalor Roddy brings to the part.
“I’ve been a fan of Lalor’s for years,” he asserts. “I think the role of Frank needs someone who can be simultaneously remarkable yet ordinary and Lalor can carry that off. He’s an actor who can bring an extraordinary presence to the stage. This is a role he was very passionate about and I’m delighted to have him as part of our production.”
Joining Roddy in the Town Hall cast are Ali White (Grace ) and Rod Goodall (Teddy ).
Faith Healer can be viewed as a somewhat ironic title for the play; in place of faith, Hardy is plagued by self-doubt and he is a healer who often causes pain to those around him.
“Frank has this incredible gift but he has no control over it, he only knows when it will work,” Andrew observes. “He’s a tormented character – he wasn’t able to help his partner Grace for instance when she had a miscarriage and he’s haunted by things like that.
“He does hurt those close to him, like Grace and Teddy, but he’s not nasty, the hurt comes from his own inner anguish. And despite the hurts these people still want to be with him. He’s destructive but their life with him is also full of joy and they feel empty without him.”
As Andrew and his cast delve deeper into the play during rehearsals he describes the challenges it poses.
“Each of the four monologues are like a play in themselves and they all have their own distinctive rhythm – Grace’s is quite different from Teddy’s for instance,” he says. “You have to be very sensitive to that and the cadences of the language, if you omit even a comma it affects the rhythm of the piece. The more we get into it the more you have to admire Friel’s genius as a writer, there’s not a word out of place. If you can get the rhythm right, it’s like music that soars.”
In Flynn, Roddy, White, and Goodall, the Town Hall has assembled a director and cast capable of finding Faith Healer’s soaring music.
Faith Healer runs at the Town Hall from Thursday August 25 to Saturday September 3. Tickets are available from the Town Hall on 091 - 569777 and www.tht.ie
