BRIAN Friel, playwright of Making History, Translations, and the awardwinning Dancing at Lughnasa, wrote Faith Healer in 1979 and this thoughtprovoking drama doesn’t date.

Is a faith healer a miracle-worker or a charlatan? Fantastic Frank Hardy – as his yellowing poster proclaims – travels in an old van with his long-suffering wife and his smooth manager to Irish, Scottish and Welsh villages to “heal”

people who pay for his “performances”.

In Wales, he cures ten sufferers in one evening, in Ireland he miraculously straightens a man’s bent finger; yet frequently nothing happens. He starts to drink heavily, and in Scotland comes tragedy.

Presented in Salisbury Playhouse’s intimate Salberg Studio, this play is essentially three separate soliloquies, exploring the three characters’ differing interpretations of the same events. This technique demands a great deal from actors – and all three are superb.

Connor Byrne is completely convincing as the flawed and self-doubting healer.

As his damaged wife, Maggie O’Brien gives the sometimes harrowing story of showbiz life on the road, and Patrick Driver engagingly conveys a frustrated impresario.

The set is minimalist, the lighting and costumes atmospheric, and the closeness of the audience very effective.

Unfortunately, without actual inter-play between the characters, the drama occasionally loses pace and becomes one-dimensional, despite the fascinating narrative.

However, like Friel’s brilliantly perceptive yet seldom-performed play Making History, (please produce it, Salisbury!) the theme of conflicting testimonies of shared experiences shows the eternally shifting fictions of human memory.

Runs until May 9.

Brendan McCusker