Diane is happily married. But, one day while travelling she meets a dashing architect. With some relief, she parts ways with him at the airport, her resistance to his alluring manner having been tested. She later discovers that she has his gloves, so she returns them in person, only to end up in bed with the man, and later falling in love. She now faces the toughest decision of her life.

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.

A one-man army comes to the rescue of the United States when a spy attempts an invasion.

A nuclear-plant leak turns a bus-load of children into murderous atomic zombies with black fingernails.