Town Hall Theatre Galway brought a magnificent production of Brian Friel’s Faith Healer to the Watergate in Kilkenny as part of an extensive national tour and while this slow production by Andrew Flynn may have left some of the audience disappointed by the vague, open to interpretation, ending, this was a fascinating piece of theatre.
Told as four monologues that give all the information but not in sequential order it outlined the story of Francis Hardy, a faith healer, who was part genius and more often a charlatan, who toured the small towns of Scotland and Wales, eking out a poor living with his mistress Grace (or common-law wife) and his Cockney manager cum agent Teddy. Hardy tells his version to open and close the play and Grace adds her side to close Act I and Teddy has a very humorous opening to Act II.
