‘The writing is beautiful, supple, rhythmical, charged with the slow, sure throb of despair and enchantment… Brian Friel is the most…

Summary A profound, harrowing excavation of the past that stands amongst Brian Friel’s masterpieces. Faith healer – faith healing. A craft without an apprenticeship, a ministry without responsibility, a vocation without a ministry. Frank Hardy, a travelling healer, offers the promise of redemption to the sick. But his is an unreliable gift, a dangerous calling, bringing him into conflict with his wife, Grace, and his manager, Teddy. Faith Healer premiered at the Longacre Theatre, New York, 1979. ‘The night of Faith Healer is one that still blazes in recollection for me, as religious experiences of art do. And it became a sort of touchstone for me . . . for defining the elusiveness of great art and the pain of the artist who creates it.’ BEN BRANTLEY, NEW YORK TIMES ‘The writing is beautiful, supple, rhythmical, charged with the slow, sure throb of despair and enchantment . . . Brian Friel is the most profound and poetic of contemporary Irish dramatists.’ Observer