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58 THE lIST 4--l8 Feb 199‘)
SPIRITUAL DRAMA The Faith Healer
Glasgow, Citizens' Theatre. Tue 9—Sat 20 Feb.
'The characters in The Faith Healer are a fairly motley bunchl' laughs Theatre In Action director Davrd O'Neill. 'But if you take one of them out of the equation, then they all die. They only have faith in each other,’
Faith is a prrrne concern of this angst- rrdden decade, and Frrel's twenty-year- old sernrnal work still resonates. The play locusses on people's need for closure and confirmation of their fears. Protagonist Frank works less as a faith healer than as a conveyer of doom,
THEATRE
The Anatomist
Edinburgh: Royal Lyceum from Fri 12 Feb.
Edinburgh is, of course, the only city in Britain where 'nair of Knox' refers to
Burke and Hare, the notorious graze! "(Til-(‘1‘, larries Bridle“. .lass:-. amount of the homicidal
resurrettrorizsts and their relationship virtli Cr Knox, an ostensibly resrte: table s; rentrst, has rarely been seen Ell recent years, but Kenny freland's revryal irnds Contemporary resonances in the old 'tr‘ue trrrne' story 'lt's actually a drax'anq-voorn comedy in the first and thr'd a<ts,' Ireland commentsjbut in the serund art he does ')fi to the Cirassmar'ket I thought this was
Ghoul's out: Bridie's chiller at The Lyceum
Keeping it Friel: The Faith Healer
unwelcome but ultimately relieving. ‘People come to Frank in order to kill off all hope, they try other cures and want a final confirmation of their hopelessness,’ explains O'Neill, ’They are bleak folk in bleak communities' Four monologues allow an alert audience to sift through the inconsistencres in search of the truth. O'Neill explains: ’We decided that each of the characters genuinely believes that they're telling the truth. There is a psychological obligation for the audience to verify their truths. Hopefully they’ll get rt,’ he says nervously. 'There is no theatre without audience rnvolvement.’ Keep the faith. (Nicky Agate)
it's like and
interesting for us now iuxtaposrno Mornrngsrde Trainspotting today’
lr'eland also finds much in the text about lll(il".'l(ill<3il$ill, strong leadership and mob rule, suooestrno the rise of Fascism in the plays lEBO's context. Dr Knox tSandy NIOISOH‘ manifests this, ‘He's not all that Fascist belief -- he's very elitist In his attitude to the crowd, but ii‘. the end rs slightly sympathetic, lean/Mir; the audience to make up their own mind Ireland has altered the play slzohtly, playing up its gruesome gothrc subtext by adding a public hanging sequence 'rt makes it more real,’ says lreland As Sam Peckrnoah once asked, ’l-low real do you need" iSteve Cr'amer')