Faith in the Words
The May Preview Massachusetts magazine is out on the streets. I have in it a story about the Berkshire Theatre Festival and its production of the Brian Friel play, Faith Healer. Here are the first few paragraphs:This is how the Berkshire Theatre Festival's season will begin: one actor, Colin Lane, on stage, delivering a monologue. Just Lane, the audience and the words of playwright Brian Friel. That's a combination that Friel's countryman, the Irish-born Lane, is looking forward to very much.
"I'm in awe of Brian Friel," Lane told Preview in a phone interview from his house in Connecticut. "He writes beautifully. His characters, despite their foibles, they're always deeply human and likeable. He has a real uncanny understanding of human conflict and the human condition."
Lane will be playing the role of Frank Hardy in Friel's play Faith Healer, which will open BTF's season on the stage of the Unicorn Theater on May 21. As the play opens, Hardy recites a litany of Welsh village names: "Aberarder, Aberayron, Llangranog, Llangurig..." He is an itinerant faith healer who plies his trade across the remote and forgotten countryside of Wales and Scotland. Traveling with him are his manager Teddy and his wife (or mistress, it's not clear) Grace.
"It's like a fourth-rate band on the road," Lane said of the traveling act. "They're trying to make a name for themselves, to make a living. It's a hilarious topic: the colorfulness of that situation."
"I'm in awe of Brian Friel," Lane told Preview in a phone interview from his house in Connecticut. "He writes beautifully. His characters, despite their foibles, they're always deeply human and likeable. He has a real uncanny understanding of human conflict and the human condition."
Lane will be playing the role of Frank Hardy in Friel's play Faith Healer, which will open BTF's season on the stage of the Unicorn Theater on May 21. As the play opens, Hardy recites a litany of Welsh village names: "Aberarder, Aberayron, Llangranog, Llangurig..." He is an itinerant faith healer who plies his trade across the remote and forgotten countryside of Wales and Scotland. Traveling with him are his manager Teddy and his wife (or mistress, it's not clear) Grace.
"It's like a fourth-rate band on the road," Lane said of the traveling act. "They're trying to make a name for themselves, to make a living. It's a hilarious topic: the colorfulness of that situation."