Brian Friel, one of Ireland's leading contemporary dramatists, creates an unusual and absorbing drama about "The Fantastic Francis Hardy," a faith healer originally from Ireland, who has been traveling the small towns of England, Wales, and Scotland with his wife Grace and his manager Teddy. On some nights several people in a small audience may be healed, but, nine times out of ten, no one is. "Am I endowed with a unique and awesome gift?" Frank wonders. "Am I a conman?" He believes he falls somewhere "between those absurd exaggerations."
The play has no interactive scenes. In separate monologues each character stands alone on an almost-bare stage, and all attention is riveted on him/her. In glorious language, each person reveals the problems which torment him/her. Talking about his days on the road with Grace and Teddy, Frank discusses his recent return to Ireland, where, in a local pub, he made two attempts at healing, but he refuses to say much more.
The suspense builds in the next act, as the distraught speaker is Grace, a former lawyer who gave up everything to follow the charismatic Frank. As she tells of her love for Frank, his treatment of her, and the terrible conditions of life on the road, the audience is unsure why they have been living apart. The third speaker, the devoted Teddy, fills in some gaps between the monologues of Frank and of Grace, though we still do not know what has happeneduntil Frank's final monologue.