Terry Devlin writes about theatre 'in the regions' and about directing Brian Friel's Faith Healer for Island

'What does a director do?", "Why this play now?" along with "How do actors remember all those lines?" are the questions that I am most frequently asked. As the artistic director of Island Theatre Company, based in Limerick, I am often asked "Is it different directing plays in the regions?" Usually by people who are not in the "regions". I've been directing Brian Friel's Faith Healer for Island, and the experience has caused me to consider these and other questions.

To begin in the "regions": Island is a company born and based in Limerick. This, apparently, makes it a regional company. A theatre company based in Limerick needs to have several facets.

We have performed Shakespeare for the simple reason that, if we don't, our audience might never see these great works. We have performed new writing with a connection to our region, as part of our job is to tell the stories of our region to the world. We reach out into our community not just through the work we present onstage, but by creating opportunities for people in the community to explore the possibilities of the theatre.

Is this not the case with companies not in the "regions"? We also are part of a national theatre, and so we present shows that should be seen in Ireland. It is surprising how rarely Faith Healer has been seen here, with perhaps only two other major productions since the première more than 20 years ago.

However, it is with some relief that I can report that the play was - on both occasions - performed by regional companies: Tinderbox (in the Ulster region) and The Abbey (in the Dublin region).

Which is a rather roundabout way of saying that all theatre in Ireland is regional, and while there are minor regional flavourings, the heart of the theatre - casting, designing, rehearsing and performing - is the same wherever you go. This theatre - and perhaps this whole society - is so small that I wonder about people who try to partition it into even smaller segments. I mean, is Limerick - with a single Arts Council-funded theatre company - an entire region unto itself? Is Waterford? Can I really cope with the responsibility of running an entire theatre region? Will I get paid extra?

And why this play now? Well, put most simply, money, ambition and opportunity fall into line at last.

How could you not want to do Faith Healer? The play is mysterious, exotic, compelling and . . . funny: laughs of recognition, sarcasm, irony - and that's before we even get to any mention of Mary Brigid O'Donnell. Faith Healer has been on our "to do" list ever since the company was founded. Ambition.

Under a peculiar twist of copyright law, if you have a licence to perform a play in London's West End, then nobody else in these islands may perform the play. You can get a licence to perform in Calais, which is a lot closer to London, but not Limerick. This was the case with Faith Healer. Over the years I've learned that the best way is to contact the licence holder, and ask them if they intend to come to Ireland. If they don't, then often they will oblige you. And such was the case. Opportunity.

Island is funded by the Arts Council, and the advent of multi-annual funding has been a boon to the company and the arts generally. We're in the third year of our cycle, and have husbanded resources carefully. Money.

AND what does a director actually do? Directing is an odd occupation, and directors are even odder people, who exist in a shadowy world between the twin genius of the writer and performer. I think directing a show can best be characterised as a complex negotiation between the text, cast, director, designers and the audience. In a very real way, the text speaks to all of us, we respond to it in our own individual ways, and my job as director is to negotiate through to the common threads in all of those varied responses.

And it does all comes back to the text, always the text. To borrow a sporting metaphor - the text gives us the size and shape of the playing field, the rules by which we play the game. Friel's play is so challenging, so mysterious, so compelling and so damn good that the challenge is to do it justice.

If we can.

Very few Irish actors have played Frank Hardy. The late Donal McCann did, memorably, in the original production; David Heap did for Belfast's Tinderbox. Why not more? What about Barry McGovern? Barry is - what's the standard phrase - "best known for his performances in Beckett . . ." But more importantly, Barry is an actor of enormous ability and vigorous curiosity, and a man who loves words. Frank is a faith healer of intermittent ability, curious mendacity with a quirky turn of phrase - an instant match, obviously.

Michael James Ford, plays Teddy, Frank's manager. Michael is a soft-spoken Englishman, a gentle presence, calm and meticulous. Teddy is a lost soul tossing in the wash of Frank's barque. The trio is completed by Grace, Frank's wife - or is it mistress? Grace is a sad woman whom we meet after the death of her husband. But she has a dark side, too, and not everything she tells us has the ring of truth. Joan Sheehy, who plays her, is soft as satin, but with a steel blade in the folds of her clothes.

We met in June and spent a week together, talking and reading. And then we separated. Faith Healer has four monologues shared between three characters. These characters never meet. In fact, we realised quite early on that it would be possible for a cast to rehearse the show and not meet until the curtain call on the first night.

Possible, but not very interesting. And besides, in strange and odd ways, each performance does influence the other two. There needs to be an agreed emotional range, plus, as any wise actor knows, what the others say about you has enormous influence on how the audience sees you. As time went on, and especially towards the end, the actors stayed later or came earlier to watch their comrades' work. As often is the case, each piece had another actor as its first audience.

WE rehearsed, slowly negotiating our way towards a consensus. Who are these three people? Why are they the way they are? Would we have got past Spain if Roy Keane had been playing? (We spent a lot of time on that one.) And the answers? The answers to these questions can be found six nights a week in a theatre near you sometime between now and September 7th.

Which is not to get a plug in but rather because I cannot answer these questions with words.

Others might be able to, but I'm not.

True, some answers are hard concrete concepts, but more often they are intuitions, gleaned from the ether that surrounds these characters, leaps of faith into the murky world of Frank, Grace and Teddy.

And so you find yourself, between the alchemy of the writer and the wizardry of the actor, learning the most important thing: sometimes it's best to shut up and let them work. Sometimes, that's exactly what a director does.

• Terry Devlin is artistic director of Island Theatre Company. Following its Limerick run, Faith Healer is at the Everyman Palace, Cork from tonight to August 3rd as part of the Friel festival; Town Hall, Galway, August 5th-10th; Garter Lane, Waterford, August 13th-14th; Dunamaise, Portlaoise, August 15th-17th; Beckett Theatre, TCD, Dublin, August 19th-24th; Civic, Tallaght, August 26th-31st and Pavilion, Dún Laoghaire, September 2-7th