Faith Healer at The Guthrie Theater on 10/24/09

By: John Olive

Joe Dowling as Frank Hardy in the Guthrie Theater production of Brian Friel's FAITH HEALER, directed by Joe Dowling, Photo credit T Charles Erickson

Faith Healer, strictly speaking, isn't a play at all. It consists of four monologues, two by Francis Hardy, itinerant faith healer, and one each by Grace, his combustible wife, and Teddy, his resolutely cheerful Cockney manager. They each tell versions of essentially the same story: "Fantastic Francis Hardy" travels the remote rural by-ways of Wales and Scotland, and then (after the death of his parents) his native Ireland. He gives "performances" in dusty, poorly heated churches and town halls. Sometimes he can, as advertised, heal the afflicted; sometimes not. Still, there can be no doubt that his gift is real – isn't it? Or that he loves, savagely, his wife – doesn't he? His heavy drinking doesn't affect his work – or does it? There's a Rashoman-like capriciousness to these memories as they pour out of the characters in this dense and exaltingly lyrical tale. 

As Grace, Sally Wingert is a knock-out. Grace fiercely keeps herself away from the bottle and the cigarette pack sitting forlornly next to her. Her bitterness is palpable, as is her grief for her stillborn child, born in the back of an old broken down van, its grave marked only by a white wooden cross. And yet, at the same time, her love for Frank is as undying as her sorrow: "How I need his sustenance." Wingert plays Grace with raw intensity, just a heartbeat away from breaking down. Yet there's no simplistic self-pity here. Instead we get Grace's simultaneous love for, and hatred of, this enthralling and exasperating man. This is courageous writing and acting, hard to watch, impossible to ignore.

Act 2 begins with Teddy, the manager, pacing around his dusty flat, drinking many bottles of beer – how Raye Birk manages this is one of the mysteries of his mesmerizing performance. We are greatly relieved to find that Teddy is genuinely funny, much given to entertaining aphorisms, filled with a wonderfully ineffable Cockney optimism. Teddy also provides us with the clearest version of the Frank Hardy story, free of Grace's bitterness and Frank's over-weening egoism. Still, Frank's pull is definitely there and it causes Teddy to stop short of the final revelation. This he leaves to Frank himself, in the final monologue.

Joe Dowling turns in a solid performance. His Frank Hardy is calm and poised, if a tad rumpled, and takes us a while to note the self-lacerating ego underlying his revelations. When we do, we trust him less, but find him much more interesting. Still, Dowling could give us a better sense of Hardy as the artistic dreamer and the destroyer of the people he loves. Can we, for example, imagine Dowling's Hardy crouched in the back of the van, swigging from a whiskey bottle? It's a stretch, even though both Grace and Teddy tell us about this. Still, that there is real power in his work is undeniable and it pays off grandly in the ending.  

The set designer, Frank Hallinan Flood, and the lighting designer, Marcus Dilliard, create a large, ramshackle wooden playing area, very effectively filling the large McGuire stage. It's all nicely understated – until the very end, when the unnecessary set pieces are removed, transforming the stage into a beautiful and breath-taking rendering of Hardy's empty life. Everything comes together, Dowling's performance, the story, the set and lighting, to create an amazing climax. 

Location Info: The Guthrie Theater
Artist Info: Guthrie Theater

Share this story: