George Bernard Shaw wrote Saint Joan in 1923, three years after Pope Benedict XV canonized her. Considered one of his masterworks, Shaw went on to win the Nobel Prize in literature two years later. The Manhattan Theater Club has mounted a serious revival for Broadway starring Condola Rashad, a three time Tony nominee for Stick Fly, The Trip to Bountiful and A Doll’s House, Part 2. I’ve been fortunate to see all of these performances (and also the Pulitzer Prize winning Ruined). Having read this play in graduate school and never having seen it staged, I was looking forward to watching this always excellent actress bring Joan to life on stage.
Saint Joan is the well known, oft-told story of Joan of Arc, a medieval military figure who helps turn the tide of French losses on the battlefield against the English. She is following the voices from God in her head which tell her to lead the troops to victory for France and crown the Dauphin as King. In this interpretation of the play, Joan is neither a madwoman filled with rage nor a demur heroic wallflower. She is clear-eyed, focused and matter-of-fact. Never for a moment do you believe Ms. Rashad’s Joan has any doubt about her mission.
What makes the play thematically rich is that Shaw wrote characters who are not simply villainous. They are also pragmatic and calculated. After her trial she is burned at the stake, largely due to her rising popularity which often follows when common people unite around a successful leader gaining power. In 1429, the English and the Catholic Church found a way to bond against a common enemy named Joan. Was she a heretic or were her visions real? Either way, the church leaders were threatened. The English, satirically painted as idiots by the Irish Shaw, just wanted her captured and killed.
How one sees this play largely depends on your worldview. Do you believe in saints and miracles? Is this a tale of politics and hypocrisy? Centuries after Joan was sentenced to death by religious leaders, the church changed its mind. The will of god or a guilty conscience? This play contains a dream epilogue occurring 25 years after Joan’s death. I think Saint Joan (the play) might be the grandmother to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Both use fantastical elements to make us think hard about what we believe and why.
Many aspects of this particular production are quite fine but the play rather than the staging is the meat here to devour. My favorite performance was Jack Davenport’s Earl of Warwick, a manipulative and ruthless man. Joan is a threat to the system. A church trial is a means to slander her and make her go away disgraced, rather than as a martyr. You also have to consider whether or not Joan was sane. She lived in a world where everyone was out for themselves above all else, trying to preserve the status quo. Sound familiar? Saint Joan truly is an excellent play.