Faith Healer

We saw Faith Healer, starting Ralpha Fiennes, Cherry Jones, and Ian McDiarmid, last week in previews. The playwright, Brian Friel, is one of my favorites and I had read Faith Healer in college, but didn't really remember the play. I thought the performance was on the best we had seen: All the actors, perhaps Jones most notably, were excellent. The play itself is wonderfully written and constructed. It's a showcase for actors, requiring them to hold the audience's attention for a 30-minute monologue.

We don't see many plays, so I was curious to see what the reviews would say today after its official opening last night. Did we overestimate it because we don't get to see many Broadway shows? I guess we didn't.

Clive Barnes, New York Post: Play or not, "Faith Healer" is, to use one of its key words, a "fantastic" theatrical experience, outdistancing the current Broadway pack by a country mile, with three performances to be treasured in memory, and reinforcing Friel's position as one of the three or four finest living English-speaking playwrights.

Ben Brantley, New York Times: Playing the title role in Brian Friel's great play "Faith Healer," which opened last night in a mesmerizing revival at the Booth Theater, Ralph Fiennes paints a portrait of the artist as dreamer and destroyer that feels both as old as folklore and so fresh that it might be painted in wet blood.