Warmongering zealots professing hotlines to God? Plus ça change, as the National’s revival of Shaw’s Joan of Arc play invites one depressingly to reflect. Marianne Elliott’s is a belting production – literally, during the battle of Orleans, when everyone starts bashing steel panels with steel bars and whacking chairs off the floor. But if the stagecraft is au courant, I’m not sure I can say the same about Saint Joan’s status as a parable of free-thinking versus institutional authority. ‘Joan’s religious fanaticism,’ wrote Shaw’s biographer Michael Holroyd at the weekend, ‘becomes the protest of a plain-spoken individual conscience.’ But to this viewer, it pretty much remains religious fanaticism.
‘I am God’s child,’ she raves, ‘and you are not fit that I should live among you.’ Which makes Joan as hard to like as the equally self-righteous churchmen and aristocrats whose power she threatens. Shakespeare would have given Joan a soliloquy, but here there’s no self-doubt, nothing to dilute her bellicosity and ‘I hear voices’ egomania. Anne-Marie Duff does a terrific job humanising her: she’s fiery-eyed and uncynical, and even a heart frozen by endless Shavian cogitation would melt at her naïve frustration with the prosecutors’ moral gymnastics. But I can credit Joan only so far as a symbol of independence from authority – not least because she takes her mandate for that independence from the greatest (albeit non-existent) authority of them all.
The show’s pleasures, then, I found elsewhere: in its historical richness, in the silken realpolitik of Angus Wright’s Earl of Warwick, and in Joan’s nemesis the Bishop of Beauvais (Paterson Joseph), struggling to square his conscience with ecclesiastical necessity. It all gets improbably grandstanding as Joan faces the Holy Inquisition, then is brought back for a queasily hagiographic epilogue. But elsewhere, the production lays siege to one’s reservations, and conquers them with conviction and style. Presumably, God is on its side.
This was one of the best plays I have seen In a long time. The music was absolutley beautiful and provided the perfect backdrop to a wonderful, emotionally charged performance. Truly an amazing feat, this play kept me interested and amazed for the entire length of the show. Go see it if you have the chance!
The only enjoyable thing about this production was the incredible battle scene staging and the performance of the Prince. Everything else was long winded, soulless and bordering on pretentious. Anne Marie Duff has incredible stage presence, but played Joan as a testosterone fuelled pre pubescent school boy (one more air punch and I would have walked) scoring his first goal. I wanted to leave feeling moved and having the play going round my head. I didn't.
All the great reviews encouraged me to see this play, but I was bored witless and left at half-time. I had forgotten how longwinded and pompous Shaw can be. The music was good. Otherwise it was a tedious and depressing experience.
A M Duff is GREAT as Joan! She will be remembered for this role.
A fantastic staging ( I loved all those "chairs" and the battle scene, too)
Go and see this and you will remember it for years. Or maybe forever.
Extraordinarily resonant with politics today. A powerful and absolutely gripping production with Anne Marie outstanding as the outsider/martyr/terrorist/celebrity - choose what you like. Best theatre I have seen in the last two years, no question. Fantastic music and design, and the use of sound and music is inspired. Should sweep any awards.
Anne Marie Duff is extraordinary in this play - fragile and yet with a compelling inner strength and absolute belief. 3 hours flew by with both the action and the debate keeping me on the edge of my seat. Cannot recommend it highly enough x
This play moved me like no other has! At a time, such as now when the questions posed by Shaw through Saint Joan are more poignant than ever, I was stunned by its relevance to today’s society.
The production was dramatic without being gratuitous, willful and vulnerable with an honesty, portrayed using Brectian techniques, drawing out the modernity in this production which made it even more relevant to the current audience.
Individual performances within the cast were perfectly balanced and executed to provide a heightened and yet realistic portrayal of a tragic piece of history.
Moments of hysteria from the magnificent battle scene to the chaos of the minds and situations following Joan are clearly portrayed using strains of humanity in relationships and brutal honesty in the depictation of history.
This production, although not entirely faithful to Shaw's original text explores the fairness and humanity of the real political figure and religious icon that Joan has become.
7 comments
This was one of the best plays I have seen In a long time. The music was absolutley beautiful and provided the perfect backdrop to a wonderful, emotionally charged performance. Truly an amazing feat, this play kept me interested and amazed for the entire length of the show. Go see it if you have the chance!
The only enjoyable thing about this production was the incredible battle scene staging and the performance of the Prince. Everything else was long winded, soulless and bordering on pretentious. Anne Marie Duff has incredible stage presence, but played Joan as a testosterone fuelled pre pubescent school boy (one more air punch and I would have walked) scoring his first goal. I wanted to leave feeling moved and having the play going round my head. I didn't.
All the great reviews encouraged me to see this play, but I was bored witless and left at half-time. I had forgotten how longwinded and pompous Shaw can be. The music was good. Otherwise it was a tedious and depressing experience.
A M Duff is GREAT as Joan! She will be remembered for this role.
A fantastic staging ( I loved all those "chairs" and the battle scene, too)
Go and see this and you will remember it for years. Or maybe forever.
Extraordinarily resonant with politics today. A powerful and absolutely gripping production with Anne Marie outstanding as the outsider/martyr/terrorist/celebrity - choose what you like. Best theatre I have seen in the last two years, no question. Fantastic music and design, and the use of sound and music is inspired. Should sweep any awards.
Anne Marie Duff is extraordinary in this play - fragile and yet with a compelling inner strength and absolute belief. 3 hours flew by with both the action and the debate keeping me on the edge of my seat. Cannot recommend it highly enough x
This play moved me like no other has! At a time, such as now when the questions posed by Shaw through Saint Joan are more poignant than ever, I was stunned by its relevance to today’s society.
The production was dramatic without being gratuitous, willful and vulnerable with an honesty, portrayed using Brectian techniques, drawing out the modernity in this production which made it even more relevant to the current audience.
Individual performances within the cast were perfectly balanced and executed to provide a heightened and yet realistic portrayal of a tragic piece of history.
Moments of hysteria from the magnificent battle scene to the chaos of the minds and situations following Joan are clearly portrayed using strains of humanity in relationships and brutal honesty in the depictation of history.
This production, although not entirely faithful to Shaw's original text explores the fairness and humanity of the real political figure and religious icon that Joan has become.