Who is telling the truth in Brian Friel’s Faith Healer? Everyone, and no one at the same time. Judging the truth of the three characters’ stories and anecdotes is nearly impossible, as they all relate the same set of events from different vantage points and present different sets of facts. Perhaps a better question regarding Faith Healer is the level of “truthiness” to each narrator’s speech.
For those unfamiliar with the term coined by Stephen Colbert in 2005, “truthiness” refers to an implicit feeling that what one is saying is the truth, without reference to facts, evidence, or logical examination. What the actual events one is describing doesn’t matter, only the absolute conviction that what one says is the only correct version of reality.
Does it matter, objectively speaking, whether Frank actually managed to heal the man with the crooked finger or not? Does it matter whether he can actually heal anyone at all, or whether he is a charlatan playing on the insecurities and weaknesses of the disabled and unfortunate? In the context of the play, not at all. All that matters is what the characters believe to be true, because it is their beliefs that shape their outlooks and the development of their personalities.
Frank, for example, believes he has a gift for healing. He knows it doesn’t work all the time (which everyone can agree on), but he really does believe that he has the power to heal injuries of strangers simply by willing it. Has he ever healed anyone, or is it simply a placebo effect that brings people to him who want to be healed? This has been argued around many religious shrines that are said to have healing powers. In the end, however, it is only the means that are being debated. The ends are clear: people have been healed.
Reality and Truth with a capital T are desperately hard concepts to pin down. According to the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “there are no truths, only interpretations.” What happens in the objective, tangible world is impossible to extract from the perspectives that individual agents in the process bring to bear on the situation. The circumstances around Grace’s miscarriage are different according to how they were perceived by both Frank and Grace. Was Frank affected by the death? According to him, yes; according to Grace, no. Which is the truth? The truth for Frank and Grace is different.
It is not the adherence to a specific set of facts that determines whether the characters in Faith Healer are telling the truth; it is the conviction that one has in the version of events that one understands that matters. Each character is telling the truth, and yet at the same time none of them are.
But if the authoritative version of events are measured by the truthiness of each character’s stories, they are all speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
