The Irish playwright Brian Friel's Faith Healer is now on Broadway with an all-star cast: Ralph Fiennes, Cherry Jones and Ian McDiarmid (from "Star Wars"). It's four half-hour monologues about the career of a con man (Fiennes) whose powers occasionally work, first from his own viewpoint, a moderately interesting but not very theatrical, account of his story including a bitter insight into who comes to a Faith Healer. Fiennes is an excellent performer, but I'd rather he just simply say the words rather than act them. What he needs is to mesmerize the audience rather than declaim to them.
Jones, as his wife, is terrific, and much realer as she gives her view of the relationship, including a breakdown. For me, though, the star of the show is McDiarmid as his Cockney manager -- a marvelous performer in a piece with classic British Music-Hall flavor. He's Leon Erroll -- stylized, large, but totally believable and totally entertaining. Fiennes does the closer in the manner of the opener. Empty black stage with a stick or two of furniture and costumes by Jonathan Fenson all add to the bleakness (McDiarmid's is an uplift). This play has a transcendent theme, but it doesn't transcend.
