Friel on Stage: Faith Healer
10th-Anniversary Season: Brian Friel (and Other Irish Voices)
To celebrate its 10th-anniversary season, Stanford Summer Theater (SST) proudly presents Brian Friel (and Other Irish Voices). Arguably the greatest living Irish playwright, Brian Friel has produced an incomparable body of plays, adaptations, and short stories dealing with the intersection of language, politics, art, and cultural renewal. As co-founder (with actor/director Stephen Rea) of the Field Day Theatre Company, Friel also has played a significant role in confronting the "troubles" that have so affected life in Northern Ireland.
SST presents two of Friel's greatest and most moving plays, Translations and Faith Healer (featuring Stanford Summer Theater guest artists Geoff Hoyle and Andrew Robinson). An all-day community symposium will put Friel's work in its wider Irish context, with lectures, performances, and panels drawing on Stanford faculty and SST artists. Finally, our seven-week film series screens some of the best Irish films, from John Huston?s version of James Joyce?s The Dead to Pat O'Connor's treatment of Friel?s own Dancing at Lughnasa. Join Continuing Studies and Stanford Summer Theater for our 10th-anniversary season, and celebrate the art, struggle, and inspiration that is Brian Friel (and Other Irish Voices).
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Friel on Stage: Faith Healer
Directed by SST Artistic Director Rush Rehm
Faith Healer deals with the power, belief, doubt, and deception at the heart of a great performer, the faith healer Frank Hardy. SST is thrilled to present Andrew Robinson in the title role. Acclaimed for his work on stage (Broadway, Lincoln Center, NY Public Theater), in film (Scorpio, Dirty Harry), and on television (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Robinson brings his extraordinary talents to the charismatic and deeply troubled Frank Hardy, who both inspires and torments his wife Grace (played by Courtney Walsh Phleger) and his manager, Teddy. A beautifully moving story of love and its costs, Faith Healer is one of the most poignant and powerful plays of the last forty years.
Performance schedule: July 31 ? August 17
Thursdays through Sundays at 8:00 pm
Sunday matinees at 2:00 pm Pigott Theater, behind Memorial Auditorium
For ticket information, visit http://summertheater.stanford.edu
Please also visit our other programs:
* Friel on Stage: Translations
* Friel in Context
* Friel and Others on Film
Sponsored by Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford University Drama Department, the School of Humanities & Sciences, and the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts.