The Faith Healer at The Donmar

The Faith Healer, written in 1979 by the late, and sadly missed Brian Friel, is reprised at The Donmar under the expert guidance of Director Lyndsey Turner.  One of our most successful Irish playwrights has fashioned a story with no interaction between the three cast members.  Instead they remember what has happened over the years, sharing these memories in a series of monologues.  The only thing is that memories re-visited have a habit of becoming distorted, none more so than here.  Not only that but, as with human nature as a whole, each character has a different perspective and thereby a different take on reality and each other.  We, the audience, have our work cut out to distinguish the reality from the fake.  But then that is a conundrum presented to non-believers coming into contact with Frank, the itinerant Faith Healer of the title.

As soon as we enter the theatre, we get the feeling that what is to follow is shrouded in mystery and sadness, inhabiting a grey rather than sunny world.  This is due to Es Devlin’s clever design, for cascading down three sides of the Donmar stage is a sheet of shimmering water, both a moving stage curtain and metaphor for the cheerless venues in which Frank performs.

Stephen Dillane’s Frank Hardy, dressed in shabby overcoat and trousers just a tad too short, appears on stage at the beginning and the end of the evening. Charismatic, but with an underlying sadness, we consider his veracity.  Is he a charlatan?  At times, maybe, but we’re given to understand that his gift for healing is, at times, real enough, it just isn’t under his control.  Perhaps this is the point Friel is trying to make;  an artist’s life is unpredictable, not only in so far as the next job is concerned but also because he is always dependent on inspiration.   Very cleverly, he also uses love as the one cohesive element between the three characters.     

The first discrepancy comes at the beginning of Gina McKee’s monologue.  Playing Grace, the Faith Healer’s wife (or is it mistress?) she talks with an Irish accent, despite Frank’s assurance that she is a Yorkshire woman.  Unlike Frank’s static performance, Grace addresses us whilst folding washing in her run-down kitchen.  Depression envelops her like a cloud.

The third person’s viewpoint is delivered by Ron Cook’s Teddy, Frank’s manager, and is much more upbeat.  Continually getting up out of his chair to fetch another bottle of Pale Ale, Teddy’s reminiscences include tales about various vaudeville artists, including a performing whippet and various pigeons.  Because of the humour and bits of business, this monologue requires a little less attention from the audience, which is something of a relief.

In fact it is the matter of concentration with which I had a slight problem.  I can’t put the blame on the play, whose lyrical language is a delight, or the actors, all of whom are at the top of their game.  No, the fault I am sure is sitting side on to the stage.  The Donmar is a wonderful space and usually seat positions are not too much of a problem.  However this play, with its lack of interchange, requires a special type of focus that is more difficult to attain when the actors’ facial expressions are mostly hidden.

In an ideal world, I would very much like to see the production again but next time in a front row pew facing the stage.

The Deep Blue Sea at The Lyttleton

Helen McCrory has proved time and time again that she is a very accomplished actress who can tackle and succeed in playing tragedy, comedy and everything else in between.  In this production of Terence Rattigan’s best play, The Deep Blue Sea, she has again teamed up with Carrie Cracknell who directed her in the superb Medea at The National a couple of years ago and is, once again, perfection.

The play opens with Hester Collyer (Helen McCrory) lying stretched out in front of an unlit gas fire, her suicide attempt having failed because she has forgotten to put a shilling in the gas meter.  From this moment on, during the space of just one day, we discover the reason for her desire to end it all.

Set in London in 1952, this is a time when living with a man whilst not married was termed living in sin, homosexuality was illegal, as was suicide and England was coming to terms with the end of World War II.  Hester is deemed a “fallen woman” in that she is cohabiting with Freddie (Tom Burke), an ex RAF pilot, in a shabby room in a two-storey rooming house.  Freddie, we soon realise, is the love of Hester’s life and the reason she has left the security of a marriage to high court judge, William (Peter Sullivan).  Sadly for her, Freddie doesn’t, or at least can’t, fully reciprocate.  He does love her in his own way but it is not the all-consuming passionate devotion she feels for him.  It is tearing her in two.

It is testament to the desire she has to live her life with this younger man that she has risked everything for love and can’t return to her husband, despite his appeal for her to do so.  McCrory conveys this beautifully.  Whenever Freddie arrives back home, she sparkles and becomes whole, visibly shrinking when he leaves.  When the inevitable happens and he prepares to leave for good, her panic and desperation, rise to the surface, turning this sensuous woman into an hysteric.  Such is the power of McCrory’s performance that we palpably feel her despair, especially when we know that Hester is under no illusion that no amount of wheedling or clinging will make him stay.

Although it is McCrory who makes this production great, the other performances are good.  There is a genuine fondness and warmth in the exchanges between Hester and her husband, thanks in part to Peter Sullivan (a younger William than normal) delicately imbuing his character with a quiet intensity.  She returns to corporate wife mode in his company, playfully asking after various mutual acquaintances, but we know as he does that Hester will never return to the marital home.  Her passion for Freddie is out of control.  Thus we feel a sadness for William too.  

Tom Burke ensures that we understand Freddie is not a total rat.  We sense his inability to give himself up wholly to loving this woman has more than a lot to do with his war experiences.  Swaggering and insensitive he may be, but Freddie also exudes a sadness that cannot be assuaged.

Tom Scutt’s design inhabits the whole of the huge Lyttleton stage and its size only heightens Hester’s diminishing control.  Helen McCrory is tiny and, encased in her one room whilst the other inhabitants of the rooming house can be seen ghostlike going about their lives, emphasizes her vulnerability.  Not that she is overwhelmed by the massive dull aquamarine structure; I doubt this actress could be overwhelmed by anything.

Some of Rattigan’s own experiences are mirrored in this play, which, along with the performances in this production, ensure The Deep Blue Sea is the perfect vehicle for highlighting “the illogicality of passion”.  Not only that but it is incredibly moving.