Theater Workshop
Selected for the 2007 performance season by TWN Artistic Director Jane Karakula, Brian Friel’s Faith Healer is about many things: the deceptions of memory, the possibility of miracles, the belief (or disbelief) in things unseen in love, faith, and art.
Friel gives us three characters, speaking four monologues. The first and last belong to Frank Hardy, played by John Devaney, a traveling healer who, after slogging through one-night stands in Wales and Scotland, returns to his native Ireland in the hope of restoring his ailing powers. The second speech comes from his long-time mistress, Grace (Pam Diem), who has forsaken her patrician background to join this genius and charlatan. The third is delivered by Teddy (John Knox-Johnston), a seedy showbiz agent who has stayed with the fractious duo out of a devotion that even he cannot fully understand.
According to critic Michael Billington, the play is “a resonant metaphor for the artist’s fragile dependence on the accident of talent, and for the Irish fear of rejection in the process of homecoming.” It illustrates, Bullington continues, “how any special gift, whether spiritual or artistic, is both a curse and an uncertain blessing.”
Faith Healer is performed in the lower level theatre of the Methodist Church, 2 Centre Street, July 11-14 and July 18-21 at 8 p.m. with a matinee on Sunday, July 15 at 3 p.m.
Photographs courtesy of TWN
Perfect family fare, the TWN production of the musical Cinderella is being offered at 5 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday through July 28, also in the Methodist Church, 2 Centre St. The talented cast is made up of local children under the direction of Laura Gallagher Byrne.
For details and online ticketing visit www.theatreworkshop.com or call 508-228-4305. The TWN box office is open Monday and Tuesday 4 to 7 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday 4 to 9 p.m.
