A few weeks ago I reviewed Black Sheep Theatre Coalition's "Rashomon," a play that explores the themes of memory and perception, specifically touching upon the mortal fallibility that causes people to remember the exact same events just a bit differently. Now meet what I will lazily describe as the Gaelic cousin of "Rashomon," Brian Friel's "Faith Healer," currently being staged by the Irish Players of Rochester as the inaugural production of Geva's Springfest 2009. Like "Rashomon," "Faith Healer" challenges you to divine the truth as you listen to three people recall their shared experiences during 20 years together, tweaking time and dropping crucial hints just when you think you've made up your mind about whose version in which to place your wobbly trust.

Delivered directly to the audience as a quartet of monologues, "Faith Healer" features Ken Bordner as Frank, or "The Fantastic Francis Hardy" according to the banner that advertises his restorative powers. Frank intones the lyrical names of the Welsh and Scottish villages in which he plies his trade as though they're a mantra instead of an itinerary, and we listen as he explains to us the fickle, shady nature of faith healing, which he refers to as "a ministry without responsibility."

Like any performer, Frank isn't sure where his gift comes from, or when it might fail him, though he claims that for the afflicted it's about "the elimination of hope" rather than a cure. Clad in a rumpled suit, Frank sits among folding chairs designed to evoke a sort of revival meeting as he describes the two people who shared his itinerant life, his woman Grace and his manager Teddy.

It's Grace who addresses us next, her haunted visage and quavery brogue only mildly calmed by the free-flowing Jameson's. As touchingly played by Judy Mollner, the timid Grace corroborates Frank's story on many points, but she begins to paint a verbal picture of a toxic co-dependency upon a cruel, charismatic charlatan unable to handle his whiskey, and in often tragic denial of the truth.

At once resentful and helpless, Grace confides during her soliloquy that she's attempting to rebuild her life and "making progress," but we're not sure what finally separated her from Frank, whom she describes repeatedly as having "damn benign eyes." We learn that Grace was once a promising lawyer who left her cold, wealthy family for a life on the road with Frank, and we hear more about one night in Ireland that seemed to have a devastating effect on all of the parties involved.

"Makes no difference to me whether you believe me or not," Frank's manager Teddy tells us over a table full of empty beer bottles. David Jason Kyle has deservedly won a couple of awards for his masterful portrayal of Teddy, ostensibly the most objective observer, though it becomes clear that his efforts to keep things strictly professional never actually panned out.

Possibly even more of a showman than Frank, the Cockney-tongued Teddy, with his bowtie and suspenders, gives a third perspective on the trio's time together, slightly contradicting Grace's claims of victimization, though in no way letting Frank off this hook for his stubborn refusal to face reality. Teddy is arguably the play's meatiest part, with Kyle compellingly handling the wide emotional range and offering some sorely needed humor. He too offers further details about the night that changed each of their lives before Frank returns to the stage for one last time, inadvertently confirming things he won't admit and maybe clarifying what really happened that fateful Irish evening.

Directed by Jean Gordon Ryon, "Faith Healer" is spare by design, with only chairs and/or tables accompanying the actors as they obliterate the fourth wall, speaking to us as though we're part of the play. At about two-and-a-half hours, "Faith Healer" might be too tedious for those who require action, reaction, and interaction in their theater, but it's a worthy part of that grand Irish tradition of yarn-spinning, the playwright Friel also having penned the Tony-winning "Dancing at Lughnasa."

So who can you believe? The first person to speak? The last? The supposedly objective one? Not everyone's telling you all of the facts, and though Frank, Grace, and Teddy are relating their own personal truths, trying to decide which flawed humans to trust, with our myriad secrets and agendas, is always a leap of...you know.

Faith Healer

Irish Players of Rochester

Through February 28

Geva Theatre Nextstage, 75 Woodbury Blvd.

$15 | 232-GEVA, gevatheatre.org