The play consists of four parts, with a monologue making up each part. The monologues are given, in order, by the faith healer, Francis (Frank) Hardy himself; his wife, Grace; his cockney manager, Teddy, and finally Hardy again.
The monologues tell the story of the faith healer himself, including an incident in a Welsh village in which he cures ten people. Teddy's monologue reveals that Grace Hardy commits suicide, while Frank ponders whether his gift is for real or not. In Frank's second monologue, it is suggested that he is killed near his home after being unable to heal a cripple. He says that he knows he will not be able to heal him and, going to face death, he feels a sense of homecoming. It is not made explicitly clear however, that Frank is actually killed; Friel leaves this up to the reader's interpretation.
The fact that the play does not end definitively typifies a main point of the play; each character gives a different recollection of the same events throughout the page.

Charlie returns to the East End after two years at sea to find his house demolished and wife Maggie gone. Everyone else knows she is now shacked up with married bus driver Bert and a toddler, and they all watch with more than a little interest at the trail of mayhem Charlie leaves as he goes about sorting things out.

Randy plumber, Sid South, enjoys a profession which offers him ample opportunity to bed sexy housewives.@