Memorable ‘Faith Healer’ gets original cast remount
BY HEDY WEISS THEATER CRITIC/hweiss@suntimes.com October 30, 2012 4:24PM
Updated: October 31, 2012 8:15PM
It was 17 years ago that a Chicago production of “Faith Healer,” Brian Friel’s heartbreaking beauty of a play, wowed all those lucky enough to see it — first in a small storefront and subsequently as part of Steppenwolf Theatre’s initial Studio season. Now, the production’s original director, J.R. Sullivan, has reassembled the original cast — Brad Armacost, Lia D. Mortensen and Si Osborne — for a remount.
Taking the form of four monologues about faith (and the loss of it), love and “show biz” in rural Ireland, “Faith Healer” homes in on Frank Hardy (Osborne), an itinerant Irish healer, his long-suffering wife, Grace (Mortensen), and Frank’s loyal promoter and set-up man, a witty Cockney named Teddy (Armacost).
The original production earned Armacost a Jeff Award, and Mortensen a Jeff Award nomination as well as the Sarah Siddons Leading Lady Award.
The Turnaround Theatre production will run Dec. 7, 2012-Jan. 20, 2013 on the intimate mainstage of The Den Theatre, 1333 N. Milwaukee in Wicker Park.
Tickets, $28, go on sale Nov. 2 at www.brownpapertickets.com.
