Faith Healer
Lyric Hammersmith, London

PATRICK MAGEE, Helen Mirren and Stephen Lewis were the heavyweight cast in the first London production of Faith Healer at the Royal Court back in 1981, but it’s difficult to believe they could have been any better than Declan Conlon, Justine Mitchell and Nick Holder in this new interpretation.

Brian Friel’s mesmerising three-handed monologue is a gift for any self-respecting set of actors, but its lyrical beauty still has to be delivered – and under the typically sure-footed direction of Rachel O’Riordan this triumvirate does that in spades.

It’s a production of such wonderful intensity that it feels like the definitive interpretation, one that Friel might have wished for.

Each of the trio puts in a faultless, utterly convincing performance: Conlon arrogant and anguished as the rakish faith healer, Francis; Mitchell fractured and fragile as his put-upon wife, Grace; and Holder desperate and despairing as the travelling show’s manager, Teddy – each revealing, bit by bit, the self-inflicted horror that collectively falls upon them.

Never knowing quite who to believe, the audience has to fall back on divining the facts through triangulation, pitting each character’s version of events against those of the others. So believable is each figure, however, and so sympathetic are their portrayals, that it’s difficult not to side with whoever happens to be on stage at the time.

Only near the end, with the return of Francis for a final soliloquy, does some clarity begin to emerge. Yet even then it’s not entirely evident if we’re seeing the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Colin Richmond’s plain, floorboarded set with scattered wooden chairs adroitly conveys the desolation that accompanies Francis, Grace and Teddy on their largely unrewarding slog across the British Isles, turning up at out-of-the way meeting halls in the hope that someone will be cured. In the background, sound designer Anna Clock insinuates a sense of foreboding with musical undertones that suggest a chilling denouement.

Though we never see the three players conjointly, their psychological interaction is so complete that it’s as if we are indeed viewing them in concert, watching in despair as their partnership begins to come apart at the seams.

It’s gripping stuff, both from the departed playwright and from his stage-bound interpreters, another triumph for O’Riordan and the Lyric, and an improvement, surely, even on that star-studded London debut 43 years ago.

Runs until April 13. Box Office: 020 8741 6850, lyric.co.uk