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EVENT DESCRIPTION
Theatre du Pif brings Brian Friel’s Faith Healer back to the stage in its original English, reaffirming the enduring power of one of modern theatre’s most influential works. Following the conclusion of its Cantonese Excerpts Reading on 7 April, the company now turns to the full English production, running from 10–18 April 2026 at the Fringe Club’s Jockey Club Studio Theatre. Audiences are invited to encounter Friel’s language in its full dramatic force. Tickets are available via art mate.
Widely regarded as one of the most powerful plays of the twentieth century, Faith Healer unfolds through three interwoven monologues — contradictory, intimate and charged with ambiguity — as a travelling healer, his wife and his manager recount fractured memories of faith, failure and survival. The play’s intensity lies not in action, but in language: cadence, repetition and silence shape its emotional architecture, drawing audiences into a shifting landscape where truth remains tantalisingly out of reach.
Brian Friel (1929–2015) stands among Ireland’s most significant playwrights and is often described as the most influential Irish dramatist after Samuel Beckett. A co founder of Field Day Theatre Company and author of landmark works including Philadelphia, Here I Come!, Translations and Dancing at Lughnasa, Friel persistently explored memory, identity and the instability of truth — themes distilled with striking clarity in Faith Healer.
Directed by renowned theatre director Michael Bray, Theatre du Pif’s English production features Barry O’Rorke, Davina Carrete and Sean Curran, Co Artistic Director of the company. Through Friel’s original prose, the play’s distinctive rhythm and tonal layering emerge with heightened urgency, intensifying the tension between recollection and reality.
Sean Curran reflects, “The script carries its own rhythm, pace and emotional momentum — something that can be felt beyond language.”
Staged in the intimate setting of the Fringe Club’s Jockey Club Studio Theatre, the production places performers and audience in close proximity, allowing the language to resonate with immediacy and clarity. With the return to its original text, Faith Healer stands as both revival and rediscovery — a testament to the enduring power of theatre shaped not by spectacle, but by the spoken word.
Dates and time:
10-11, 13-18 Apr 2026, 7:45pm
Performed in English
ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER
Theatre du Pif was formed in Scotland in 1992 by Bonni Chan and Sean Curran and for three years, they conducted daily classes, taught professional and community groups and devised productions that toured around the UK and Europe.In 1995, Theatre du Pif relocated to Hong Kong and became known for its cross-cultural heritage and bilingual productions performing in Cantonese, English or both. Often using a workshop and devising process as well as collaborations with dramaturges and artists from other disciplines, the company orchestrates movement, text and visual images to create new productions acclaimed for their power and their poetry.
The company has staged plays by a variety of world dramatists including Jean Anouilh, Samuel Beckett, David Harrower, Henrik Ibsen, Sarah Kane, Federico Garcia Lorca, Harold Pinter, Yasmina Reza and Cao Yu. They have collaborated with a number of international theatre directors and artists including Robert Draffin (Australia), Mikel Murfi (Ireland), Adrian Noble (UK), Yang Jun-gung (Korea), Jovanni Sy (Canada) and more.
Taking theatre into the community has been a key element of the company’s work and they facilitated a series of community theatre projects including three devised productions with a group of housewives from Hong Kong and Diversity (2002) commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council to celebrate cultural diversity in Scotland.
The company also takes its work abroad, touring its productions upon invitation to Beijing, Berlin, Bogota, Malaysia, Tokyo, Singapore, Shanghai, Macau, Vancouver, London, Edinburgh, Avignon and Cork. In 2010, Theatre du Pif was invited to stage its critically acclaimed production The Will to Build at the Shanghai World Expo where it was the opening programme of the Hong Kong cultural week.
Theatre du Pif is financially supported by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
