Three Searching Souls in Danger of Losing All Faith in Themselves

SAN DIEGO--He’s long-winded. She’s long-suffering. And the neutral party in the middle of their marital strife has broken his own rule about not getting emotionally involved.

“Faith Healer,” the 1979 Brian Friel play that opened Saturday at the Globe Theatres’ Cassius Carter Centre Stage, tells the tale of a traveling Irish faith healer, “Fantastic” Francis (Frank) Hardy; his neurotic-heroic wife, Grace; and Hardy’s Cockney manager, Teddy.

The premise is that sometimes--not often, but sometimes--Hardy may actually have the ability to heal people. His private hell is that he knows that on most nights, he’s destined to fail. He recites the names of Welsh and Scottish towns to summon his courage for another performance.

“I always knew, drunk or sober, when nothing was going to happen,” says the glib, engaging, narcissistic Frank, played by Michael Rudko.

No two characters are on stage at the same time. Each does a lengthy monologue, with Frank returning for a second round.

“Faith,” by turns, is funny, sentimental, maudlin and screechy, and ultimately it is more successful than it has a right to be, given its spare setting and the fact that the characters are never allowed to interact except in their rambling remembrances.

Each of the three has made an existence of nursing grievances and living for brief moments of fulfillment amid a long streak of tight money and hard times.

“He was such a twisted man, with such a talent for hurting,” says Grace, played with spooky realism by Lizbeth Mackay. Grace gauges her mental health recovery by how much she drinks, how much she sleeps and how many cigarettes she smokes. The answers: a lot, a little, a lot.

Each has a different take on high points and low points of their two decades on the road. As the play opens, the partnership has dissolved, but information about when and how unfolds slowly.

Those dozen people who did not return after intermission missed the best stuff: Teddy’s description of life with the battling, boozing couple and his own determined attempt to make a star of a bagpipe-playing dog.

Tim Donoghue--despite a bad wig--is a superb Teddy, providing the funniest and most gut-wrenching of the lines.

The audience has to piece together the lies and truths of their contrasting memories and delusions of Frank, Grace and Teddy. It takes some effort, but it’s worth it: The pain and the poetry of their life together resonates. Have a little faith.

*

“Faith Healer,” the Old Globe Theatres complex in Balboa Park, San Diego. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays 2 p.m.; Sundays 7 p.m. Ends Aug. 25. $35-$45. (619) 239-2255. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

Michael Rudko...Frank

Lizbeth Mackay...Grace

Tim Donoghue...Teddy

Written by Brian Friel. Directed by Seret Scott. Costume designer Lewis Brown. Sound designer Paul Peterson. Scenic designer Robin Sanford Roberts. Lighting designer David Cuthbert. Stage manager Raul Moncada.