Faith Healer
September 19, 2020. Old Vic: In Camera
Brian Friel’s play could have been written for this winning post Covid format that the Old Vic have struck on.
The story of Francis Hardy, Faith Healer is told in 4 monologues, each advancing the story, each with a slightly different and nuanced version that builds on the last.
Our three protagonists Francis, Grace, his wife and Teddy, his promoter. We are in the shabby, down-trodden world of the desperate, broken and needy. Those that come to be healed no longer have hope according to Francis, they have come to have their hopelessness confirmed.
Does Francis have the gift? One night in Wales he appears to heal 10 people. It’s in the papers and he holds onto the clipping and this glimmer of hope for years. His only moment of success.
That one night is the only night of apparent happiness that Grace reports as they took the money offered by a healed farmer and blew the lot in a hedonistic four days in a hotel, completely abandonning Teddy. Grace is a lost cause, hopelessly in love with a man who doesn’t see her or her many miscarriages and worse. An intelligent yet childlike woman who throws it all away for what she believes is love. Hers is a story of true tragedy.
And Teddy, the music hall, two-bit promoter who throws his lot in with these two to promote. Travelling round the country in a van together, sleeping in fields when funds run low and acting as nurse, mother and agent. You wonder why he stayed and didnt go back to his bagpipe playing whippet. His is a different yet equally tragic love story.
Twisted love, co-dependency and falsehoods. Where the truth is so bleak you tell yourself other stories to mask it. All swimming in alcohol to numb the pain of everyday life and the truth of failure.
It’s also heart-break, human frailty and failed homecomings.
The performances are breath-taking. Michael Sheen, Indira Varma and David Threlfall are exquisite. The narcissism, neediness and vulnerability of Francis, the naive, hopeless, abused Grace and the sad, mentally-scarred and haunted Teddy.
Language plays a huge role. The names of welsh villages are recited like incantations at the beginning of each piece giving a pseudo religious feel fitting with that of faith healing. Each actor seems to relish in the sounds of the welsh language and they do feel warm and comforting.
More of this please the Old Vic.
5/5 As a friend also watching it last night texted me. Mesmirising
