JADAR

★★★★☆

David Thacker takes on Brian Friel’s Faith Healer, a challenging three-hander built around monologues that unravel the intertwined fates of Frank, the faith healer; Grace, his wife; and Teddy, his stage manager. Set in the 1950s, each monologue reveals details of their tour through Scotland and Wales, concluding in Ireland for a supposed “homecoming.”

Nestled into the architecture of The Kings Arms Theatre, Faith Healer’s set feels right at home, as if it always existed there outside of the show’s run. Bathed in warm light, the set features worn, dark wood furniture, with a towering banner stretched behind that reads: “The Fantastic Francis Hardy, Faith Healer, One Night Only.”

Thacker makes fabulous use of the space, structuring the audience in a non-linear arrangement so that we surround the playing space. I’ve never seen The Kings Arms set up this way – or structured outside of the traditional end-on staging – so this felt refreshing and aided in engaging us throughout the whole runtime. The performance felt intimate and almost bewitching—leaving us questioning at every turn whether Frank’s talent was genuine, if people can truly be healed through divine intervention.

I had the pleasure of seeing Cock at 53two late last year, which notably featured Colin Connor and was directed by Rupert Hill. It’s exciting to see the pair reunited this time in this production—though they don’t actually share the stage until the final bows.

Beginning with Frank, played by Connor (American Buffalo), we are introduced to Frank’s talents and shortcomings as a miracle worker, as well as a fateful night when everything went wrong. Connor portrays Frank as cynical yet good-humoured, narrating his story with a deliberately optimistic spin, as though trying to make it seem better than it truly was. Connor commands the space, earning our trust, and subsequently breaking it as the other characters tell their sides of the story, and we learn that Frank’s tales weren’t as plain as he told them.

The lights dim on Connor as he exits, and in turn illuminating Vicky Binns, sitting alone at a table, wrapped in a shawl. Binns delivers an intense performance as Grace, channelling a fiery rage that shifts painfully between extremes of anguish and anger. It quickly becomes clear that trusting Frank’s pleasantries was a mistake. Binns maintains a raw emotional intensity throughout, delivering tears and passion until the very end of her monologue. Witnessing the character’s grief-stricken outpouring was haunting, especially given Binns’ sheer potency of emotion. Binns pours every ounce of herself into this role, fully embodying Grace’s pain with remarkable control.

The interval passes but as we reenter the upstairs pub theatre, the audience space has been flipped, and we now face the looming “Faith Healer” banner above. Providing hilarious and much-needed comedic relief after Grace’s harrowing section, Rupert Hill plays Teddy with an endearing cockney charm, as if he was somehow unaware of just how funny he is—or perhaps that’s only part of the manipulation. Dressed in a red silk robe, Hill plays quite the showman of a show manager. Hill’s take on Teddy felt refreshingly hopeful; there’s a sense of omniscience and detachment from the couple’s drama that made Teddy’s version of events seem slightly more believable than theirs.

By Teddy’s section, I was desperate to learn what happened that “terrible first night in Ireland”; Friel’s writing is divisive and sharp, skirting around this cognisance, leading us around in circles. Hill revels in this opulence of the text, drinking through his crate of dark glass bottles as he spills the Hardy couple’s secrets. 

The production bookends with Frank’s final monologue. Connor handles this assuredly, conveying Frank’s breakdown and demise as a terrified, resigned man.

Faith Healer is a show I would need to watch a few more times to be certain that I hadn’t missed any details, as Friel’s text is so rich that you could be lost in thought for just a moment and miss a key puzzle piece to one of the mysteries of the story. It’s a fairly lengthy show, at over two hours, which does feel its length due to the monologue structure, but Thacker is intentional, precise, and excels in keeping the pace and intrigue strong throughout.

Faith Healer runs at The Kings Arms until January 19.

Photo: Shay Rowan