A PROVOCATIVE AND INTELLECTUALLY STIMULATING VERSION OF THE JOAN OF ARC STORY

By Richard Cubitt · Richard Cubitt Substack ⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

Playing until the 12th of April, at the Arches Lane theatre near Battersea Power Station, Saint Joan is a fittingly bold adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s play of the same name.

Shaw’s play has been condensed down from a usual four-hour runtime by Ruthie Black, who also stars as Jane. Black does a terrific job of conveying large amounts of interesting philosophical and political ideas in a concise way; I was never left feeling like I was missing part of a large whole.

According to this adaptation’s blurb, Saint Joan is well known for presenting opposing viewpoints in compelling ways, and this version certainly left me with an intellectually engaging view of Joan of Arc. Black portrays the character as a force of a nature; believably utterly convinced of her position, as if spoken to by God, whilst urging the French to increasingly violent ends. Her gaze, often fixed out towards the audience, left them with no question as to her single-minded determination, creating the impression of a fanatical yet charismatic leader.

Playing all the other parts James Saxby gave a trickster like performance switching convincingly between several different archetypes of powerful men, with the childlike cowardly Dauphin of France being a particular highlight. His performance felt almost more central to the production than Joan, presenting a political establishment that is being pushed in new directions by Joan, but ultimately destroys her, despite her crimes being as much theirs.

Directed by Peter Hinton-Davis, the production, performed on a sparse set, putting the audience in mind of a run dun conference centre, felt like it nicely integrated the inevitable sound of trains that comes with a location like Arches Lane theatre, to construct a production grounded in a war torn world which it increasingly feels like we’re heading towards. With current events in mind, it felt difficult to read this production as particularly sympathetic to Joan and instead transformed the play into an indictment of all participants in the system of war.

This cynical view of all the play’s characters did, however, at times made it hard to resonate with the play on an emotional level, with each character comings across more as equally wrong, rather than as all having valid arguments. Some sound cues of religious music felt designed to remedy this but felt unconvincing and out of place with the rest of the production.

Ultimately though Ruthie Black’s Saint Joan is a provocative and intellectually stimulating version of the Joan of Arc story, with strong resonance in the current political climate.

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Photo Credit: HAUI