FAITH HEALER, Friel, Almeida till 19 January

FAITH HEALER: Brian Friel
Almeida: Tkts 020 7359 4404
Runs: 2h, No interval, till 19 January 2002
Review: Vera Lustig, 22 December 2001

Friel's memory-play spins language and memory into something ethereal: finely judged, atmospheric production does it full justice
In this quintessentially Irish piece of story-telling, Friel dispenses with dialogue, teasing out the narrative into four consecutive monologues. These reminiscences are delivered by Frank, the eponymous healer, his wife and their manager, Teddy: each with a different take on their penurious, cramped life on the road.

The monologues flow into each other thanks to scene changes that deftly replace one sparely evocative setting with another while a red curtain crosses the stage. The opening curtain is accompanied by the murmuring of the Celtic place-names on Frank's itinerary, lending a mythic quality to his journey towards a preordained death.

Like Frank's capacity for healing, Ken Stott's command of the stage seems effortless – though that world-weary face, cracking into a bad-boy grin, and the richly marinated voice, do help. Stott's plain rendering of Frank's portentous description of his encounter with his nemesis, an apocalyptic quartet of fellow-drinkers, makes it all the eerier. Geraldine James, as Frank's widow, unsuccessfully battling depression in a dingy/genteel London bedsit, has a tragic radiance, and her collapse into unbearable grief is affecting, though it is hard to imagine the younger, mettlesome woman of Teddy's monologue.

A dapper Ian McDiarmid, with Ken Livingstone twang and rueful asides, provides both the comic relief and the most devastating revelations. A might-have-been, Teddy was nonetheless the still centre of the menage, fiercely tender in his undeclared love for Grace. When Frank temporarily deserted her, it was Teddy who delivered Grace's stillborn child.

Teddy survives alone and lonely: Frank and Grace address us, not him, from the world of the dead and the dying. Faith Healer's lack of dialogue is no mere stylistic conceit.

Cast:
Frank: Ken Stott
Grace: Geraldine James
Teddy: Ian McDiarmid

Director: Jonathan Kent
Design: Rob Howell
Lighting: Mark Henderson
Sound: John A Leonard

2002-01-02 21:37:19