Ron Sossi, artistic director of Odyssey Theater Ensemble, celebrates the company’s 50th anniversary season by revisiting Faith Healer by Brian Friel, which was first seen at the Odyssey back in 1989. This time around Paul Norwood takes on the role of Frank, the itinerant Irish faith healer who may or may not be a con man. Diana Cignoni plays Grace, his long-suffering upper-class wife; Ron Botitta is Teddy, his bibulous, bitching manager. All three turn in remarkable performances. All three also, in “Rashomon” fashion, have different views of the same key events, which they convey in monologues aimed directly at the audience. These long, densely-written speeches seem better suited to the written page than to the stage but manage to be engrossing, thanks to the stellar work of the actors. What emerges from Friel’s text is a portrait of a self-loathing, unlikable, yet undoubtedly charismatic and sometimes effective mountebank who holds those closest to him in his spell. The exploiter and the exploited need each other here, though the much-humiliated Grace ultimately summons up the nerve to take revenge on him. Faith Healer is a dark, brooding play, but it is also shot through with flashes of Gaelic poetry and humor. Teddy’s speech on the mental shortcomings of actors is undoubtedly the high point of the show.
