Faith Healer

With the Fringe bulging obesely with single-performer shows, surely the Edinburgh International Festival could treat us to something a little less dour than this two-and-a-half-hour quadruple monologue? The EIF is normally all about soul-searing drama and thundering grandeur. So what in Zeus’ name is Faith Healer playing at with its stark set, its unrelenting stillness and its cast of three that never speak to each other?

Brian Friel’s moot masterpiece, brought to Edinburgh by Dublin’s Gate Theatre to celebrate his 80th birthday, is an altogether staid affair. Faith Healer is an introspective play about performance and theatricality designed to tease audiences and raise index fingers. It’s out-and-out avant-gardism and we’re being tested by its staidness.

Francis Hardy is a travelling miracle worker who drifts between small communities with his mistress and his Cockney manager. We’re told he once cured ten cripples in a single virtuosic performance in a small Welsh village, but no evidence remains of it. Since this day his powers have been erratic and unreliable — perhaps he never had any special powers in the first place. Perhaps they’re all just kidding themselves. But there’s one power he has for certain and it’s the power of—brace yourselves—performance. He’s a spellbindingly good performer and all three desperately want to believe in his act.

But alas, they all want to believe different things and each monologue gives a slightly differing account of the same story in a Rashomon-like set-up. Who do we believe and how do we know we’re not being led astray by a performer’s charm?

Memorably slick performances throughout and splendidly postmodern and all that, but, frankly, a bit boring.