WEEKEND REVIEW : Theater : Friel’s ‘Faith Healer’ Mines Terrain of the Soul

The sense of dislocation that comes naturally to “Faith Healer,” an indelible tale of unrequited love by the great Irish playwright Brian Friel, reaches ambiguous heights in the Second Stage revival that opened Friday at South Coast Repertory.

If you can get over the disconcerting drift of accents that properly begin in Ireland and England but inadvertently end up somewhere in mid-America, often within the same sentence, you can appreciate this production for its intensely poetic gab, its tortured characters and its spiritual terrain of utter desolation.

Friel’s 1979 play consists of retrospective monologues, sometimes at odds with each other, by a trio that used to eke out a bleak existence taking their carny act on tour to dozens of remote Scottish and Welsh villages along the coast of the Irish Sea.

There’s the title character, Frank, otherwise known as the Fantastic Francis Hardy, as he was touted to the halt and the lame, a spellbinder intermittently possessed of miraculous healing powers; Grace, his abused but desperately loyal wife whom he claims was his mistress; and Teddy, his devoted, embittered Cockney manager whose comical manner belies his profound sadness and whose recollections seemed to me the most reliable.

The memories of their lives together--embroidered by time and illusion, distilled by irony, warped by tragedy--are delivered with an incantatory invocation of names: Aberarder, Aberayron . . . Abergorlech, Abergynolwyn . . . Kinlochbervie, Inverbervie . . . all the places that Frank’s “performances” took them.

The names are separately recited by Frank and Grace like a ritual prayer for solace, which never comes. Teddy, too, recalls the names but without the mystical incantations. An old showman, he has more faith in the magic of Fred Astaire singing “The Way You Look Tonight” on his old phonograph than he does in Frank’s unpredictable gift.

But Teddy vacillates. He recounts with amazement how in Glamorganshire Frank once cured 10 people, including a crippled farmer and a blind old man. “I’d seen him do fantastic things before but I’d never seen him do anything on that scale,” Teddy says. Frank “not only had taken away whatever it was was wrong with them but like he had given them some great content in themselves.”

*

Barbara Damashek, who previously directed “Sunday in the Park With George” and “Happy End” on the SCR Mainstage, exploits the intimacy of the Second Stage theater by blocking the piece almost as though it were being played in the round.

While the pace of the evening could be picked up, the monologues never seem static. I wish I could say the same for the live music--drum and pipe--that she has added for atmosphere. It feels intrusive, interrupting rather than blending fluidly with the actors.

Hal Landon Jr. looks exactly right for Frank and shapes his performance in small increments toward a climax. For my taste his portrayal gets a little relentless. I couldn’t help feeling on opening night that he had mapped out a diagram of a difficult role and was trying to follow it to the letter. That will doubtless improve as “Faith Healer” continues its run. Let’s hope the Irish brogue he kept dropping does too.

Karen Landry gives a warmer, more affecting performance as Grace. She offers genuine shading, even though she doesn’t nail the proper intonation either. Though you inevitably know she’s American rather than English, the dark, sturdy timbre of her voice makes you feel that Grace has withstood a lifetime of suffering. Landry shows us, simultaneously, how fragile and beaten Grace is.

Ron Boussom plays Teddy with his usual flair for telling details. This performance is a tossed salad of comic gestures and moods, whether he’s fishing a beer bottle from the pocket of his soiled dressing gown or acting out the story of his bagpipe-playing whippet. But for all his blithe humor, Boussom conveys the sense of a yawning abyss that engulfs Teddy. Unless I am imagining this, he seemed to me a man on the verge of tears.

John Iacovelli’s set, Tom Ruzika’s lighting and Julie Keen’s costumes are as good as they get. Iacovelli has even given us the musty odors and lingering perfume of the damp earth that keeps Friel inspired.

* “Faith Healer,” South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tues.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sun. 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Ends May 28. $28-$34. (714) 957-4033. Running time: 2 hour, 25 minutes.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Hal Landon Jr.: Frank

Karen Landry: Grace

Ron Boussom: Teddy

Charlie Warren: Musician

A South Coast Repertory production of a play by Brian Friel. Directed by Barbara Damashek. Scenic designer: John Iacovelli. Costume designer: Julie Keen. Lighting designer: Tom Ruzika. Dialect coach: Dudley Knight. Production manager: Michael Mora. Stage manager: Randall K. Lum.