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= Saint_Joan_(play) =
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Introduction
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'Saint Joan' is a play by George Bernard Shaw about the 15th-century
French military figure Joan of Arc. It is divided into six scenes and
a final epilogue. It was first produced in New York in December 1923
and opened in London three months later.
Written after Joan's canonisation by the Roman Catholic Church, the
play depicts her progress from peasant girl to military leader, her
subsequent trial for heresy and her execution.
The central role of Joan was written for the actress Sybil Thorndike
but it was Shaw's usual practice between 1920 and the mid-1930s to
have his plays premiered by the Theatre Guild in New York. Winifred
Lenihan was cast as Joan in the guild's production. Thorndike played
the role in the London premiere three months later, and in three
revivals over the next seven years.
The play reflects Shaw's belief that the people involved in Joan's
trial acted according to what they thought was right.
Background
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Shaw's vociferous objection to Britain's entry into the First World
War had made him widely unpopular, and his 'Heartbreak House', written
in 1916-17 and staged in 1920, had been coolly received by American
and British audiences. His next production, 'Back to Methuselah'
(written between 1918 and 1920), a cycle of five interrelated plays,
had only a short run. Shaw felt he had exhausted his remaining
creative powers in the huge span of this "Metabiological Pentateuch".
He was in his late sixties and he expected to write no more plays. His
interest in writing for the theatre was revived when, in May 1920,
Pope Benedict XV proclaimed Joan a saint. Shaw had long found Joan an
interesting historical character, and his view of her veered between
"half-witted genius" and someone of "exceptional sanity". He had
considered writing a play about her in 1913, and the canonisation
prompted him to return to the subject. He wrote 'Saint Joan' in the
middle months of 1923.
Several models for the character of Joan have been suggested. The
first was the actress Sybil Thorndike, who had been Shaw's friend
since 1908. He was greatly impressed by her performance in 1922 in
Shelley's 'The Cenci', which - as 'Saint Joan' was to do - has a
pivotal trial scene. Another model was the Fabian and suffragette
activist Mary Hankinson, to whom Shaw gave a copy of 'Saint Joan' in
1924, inscribed, "To Mary Hankinson, the only woman I know who does
not believe that she was the model for Joan, and also the only woman
who actually was". Another possible model, according to Shaw's
biographer Stanley Weintraub, was T. E. Lawrence, a friend of the
Shaws and "a man who had become in his lifetime precisely the
charismatic combination of spiritual leader and undisciplined military
genius that Joan of Arc had been in fifteenth-century France".
Between 1920 and 1935 it was Shaw's practice, with one exception, to
have his plays premiered by the Theatre Guild in New York. Once he had
agreed to let the guild give the first performances of 'Saint Joan',
Alla Nazimova and Eva Le Gallienne were considered for the leading
role, but the guild's final choice was a newcomer, Winifred Lenihan.
Premieres
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'Saint Joan' was first performed by the Theatre Guild company at the
Garrick Theatre, New York on 28 December 1923. It ran there for 215
performances. The West End premiere was at the New Theatre on 26 March
1924. It ran for 244 performances.
!Role !New York !London
|Joan of Arc |Winifred Lenihan |Sybil Thorndike
|Robert de Baudricourt |Ernest Cossart |Shayle Gardner
|Steward to de Baudricourt |William M. Griffith |Francis Hope
|Bertrand de Poulengy |Frank Tweed |Victor Lewisohn
|Duke la Trémouille, Grand Chamberlain of France |Herbert Ashton
|Bruce Winston
|Duchesse de la Trémouille |Elizabeth Pearre |Beatrice Smith
|Archbishop of Rheims |Albert Bruning |Robert Cunningham
|Gilles de Rais ("Bluebeard") |Walton Butterfield |Milton Rossmer
|Captain La Hire |Morris Carnovsky |Raymond Massey
|Bishop of Beauvais |Ian Maclaren |Eugene Leahy
|Dauphin, Charles VII |Philip Leigh |Ernest Thesiger
|Earl of Warwick |A. H. Van Buren |E. Lyall Swete
|Dunois, Bastard of Orléans |Maurice Colbourne |Robert Horton
|Brother John Lemaître, the Inquisitor |Joseph Macaulay |O. B.
Clarence
Brother Martin Ladvenu |Morris Carnovsky |Lawrence Anderson
|Canon John D'Estivet |Albert Perry |Raymond Massey
|John de Stogumber, English chaplain |Henry Travers |Lewis Casson
|Thomas de Courcelles, Canon of Paris |Walton Butterfield |Francis
Hope
|Page to Dunois |James Norris |Jack Hawkins
|Page to Warwick |Seth Baldwin |Sidney Bromley
|Court Page |Jo Mielziner |--
|Executioner |Herbert Ashton |Victor Lewisohn
|English Soldier |Frank Tweed |Kenneth Kent
|Gentleman |Ernest Cossart |Matthew Forsyth
Plot
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Shaw characterised 'Saint Joan' as "A Chronicle Play in 6 Scenes and
an Epilogue ". Joan, a simple peasant girl, claims to experience
visions of Saint Margaret, Saint Catherine, and the archangel Michael,
which she says were sent by God to guide her conduct.
Scene 1 (23 February 1429): Robert de Baudricourt complains about the
inability of the hens on his farm to produce eggs. Joan claims that
her voices are telling her to lift the siege of Orléans, and to allow
her several of his men for this purpose. Joan also says that she will
crown the Dauphin in Reims Cathedral. Baudricourt ridicules Joan, but
his Steward feels inspired by her words. Baudricourt eventually begins
to feel the same sense of inspiration, and gives his consent to Joan.
The Steward enters at the end of the scene to exclaim that the hens
have begun to lay eggs again. Baudricourt interprets this as a sign
from God of Joan's divine inspiration.
Scene 2 (8 March 1429): Joan talks her way into being received at the
court of the weak and vain Dauphin. There, she tells him that her
voices have commanded her to help him become a true king by rallying
his troops to drive out the English occupiers and restore France to
greatness. Joan succeeds in doing this through her excellent powers of
flattery, negotiation, leadership, and skill on the battlefield.
Scene 3 (29 April 1429): Dunois and his page are waiting for the wind
to turn so that he and his forces can lift the Siege of Orléans. Joan
and Dunois commiserate, and Dunois attempts to explain to her more
pragmatic realities of an attack, without the wind at their back. Her
replies eventually inspire Dunois to rally the forces, and at the
scene's end, the wind turns in their favour.
Scene 4 (June 1429): Warwick and Stogumber discuss Joan's stunning
series of victories. Joined by the Bishop of Beauvais, they are at a
loss to explain her success. Stogumber decides Joan is a witch.
Beauvais sees Joan as a threat to the Church, as she claims to receive
instructions from God directly. He fears she wants to instil national
pride in the people, which would undermine the Church's universal
rule. Warwick thinks she wants to create a system in which the king is
responsible to God only, ultimately stripping him and other feudal
lords of their power. All agree that she must die.
Scene 5 (17 July 1429): the Dauphin is crowned Charles VII at Reims
Cathedral. A perplexed Joan asks Dunois why she is so unpopular at
court. He explains that she has exposed very important people as
incompetent and irrelevant. She talks to Dunois, Bluebeard, and La
Hire about returning home. Charles, who complains about the weight of
his coronation robes and smell of the holy oil, is pleased to hear
this. She then says to Dunois "Before I go home, let's take Paris", an
idea which horrifies Charles, who wants to negotiate a peace
immediately. The Archbishop berates her for her "sin of pride". Dunois
warns her that if she is captured on a campaign he deems foolhardy, no
one will ransom or rescue her. Now realising that she is "alone on
earth", Joan declares that she will gain the strength to do what she
must from the people and from God. She leaves, leaving the men
dumbfounded.
Scene 6 (30 May 1431): deals with her trial. Stogumber is adamant that
she be executed at once. The Inquisitor, the Bishop of Beauvais, and
the Church officials on both sides of the trial have a long discussion
on the nature of her heresy. Joan is brought to the court, and
continues to assert that her voices speak to her directly from God and
that she has no need of the Church's officials. This outrages
Stogumber. She does not acquiesce to the pressure of torture, but is
finally convinced her visions have betrayed her once the court tells
her they are ready to execute her at a moment's notice. She agrees to
sign a confession relinquishing the truth behind her voices. When she
learns she will be imprisoned for life without hope of parole, she
renounces her confession:
Joan accepts death at the stake as preferable to such an imprisoned
existence. Stogumber vehemently demands that Joan then be taken to the
stake for immediate execution. The Inquisitor and the Bishop of
Beauvais excommunicate her and deliver her into the hands of the
English. The Inquisitor asserts that Joan was fundamentally innocent,
in the sense that she was sincere and had no understanding of the
church and the law. Stogumber re-enters, screaming and severely shaken
emotionally after seeing Joan die in the flames, the first time that
he has witnessed such a death, and realising that he has not
understood what it means to burn a person until he has actually seen
it happen. A soldier had given Joan two sticks tied together in a
cross before the moment of her death. Bishop Martin Ladvenu also
reports that when he approached with a crucifix to let her see it
before she died, and he approached too close to the flames, she warned
him of the danger from the stake, which convinced him that she could
not have been under the inspiration of the devil.
Epilogue: 25 years after Joan's execution, a retrial has cleared her
of heresy. Brother Martin brings the news to Charles VII. Charles then
has a dream in which Joan appears to him. She begins conversing
cheerfully not only with Charles, but with her old enemies, who also
materialise in the King's bedroom. The visitors include the English
soldier who gave her a cross. Because of this act, he receives a day
off from Hell on the anniversary of Joan’s death. An emissary from the
present day (the 1920s) brings news that the Catholic Church is to
canonise her. Joan says that saints can work miracles, and asks if she
can be resurrected. At this, all the characters desert her one by one,
asserting that the world is not prepared to receive a saint such as
her. The last to leave is the English soldier, who is about to engage
in a conversation with Joan before he is summoned back to Hell at the
end of his 24-hour respite. The play ends with Joan ultimately
despairing that mankind will never accept its saints:
Themes
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Shaw wrote in his preface to the play:
Shaw described the play as "Tragedy not Melodrama"; his biographer
Michael Holroyd has characterised it as "a tragedy without villains".
Other commentators have differed about whether the play is a tragedy
at all. According to Eric Bentley, Shaw attempts "a tragic conflict -
that is, an irreconcilable conflict". Louis L. Martz and Hans Stoppel
have argued that Shaw failed to create a tragic protagonist along
classical lines because he did not establish the responsibility for
Joan's fall as primarily her own: "Joan's destiny is not wrecked by a
tragic flaw, by 'hubris' but because she and [her accusers] are only
human beings, and in these Shaw had lost his absolute faith". Sylvan
Barnet went further and asserted that Shaw was incapable of writing
tragedy.
Criticism
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After the British premiere the journalist J. M. Robertson reacted to
the play by arguing that it was highly inaccurate, especially in its
depiction of medieval society. 'The Stage' commented that Shaw:
'The Times', despite rating the play as "one of Mr Shaw's finest
achievements", thought it "a nuisance that he is so obsessed with the
present moment as to drag it into every period, however remote, that
he dramatizes".
The critic Herman Klein suggested that the play should be turned into
an opera, especially if Edward Elgar could be induced to write the
music. Frederick S. Boas compared the different treatments of Joan in
dramas by Shakespeare, Schiller, and Shaw.
T. S. Eliot, discussing the play after its premiere in London in 1924,
wrote that although 'Saint Joan' was not the masterpiece that some
claimed it to be, the play "seems to illustrate Mr. Shaw's mind more
clearly than anything he has written before". And although he credited
Shaw with providing an "intellectual stimulant" and "dramatic
delight", he took issue with his portrayal of the heroine: "his Joan
of Arc is perhaps the greatest sacrilege of all Joans: for instead of
the saint or the strumpet of the legends to which he objects, he has
turned her into a great middle-class reformer, and her place is a
little higher than Mrs. Pankhurst" (the militant leader of the British
suffragettes).
More general interpretation of Joan's character is to describe her as
a rebel against general institutional authority, such as that of the
Catholic Church and the feudal system. Recent comments have noted her
particularly strong form of religious belief and how it borders on
religious fanaticism.
Revivals
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Year Theatre Joan Ref
1925 Regent Theatre, London Sybil Thorndike
1925 Théâtre des Arts, Paris (in French, as 'Saint Jeanne') Ludmilla
Pitoëff
1926 Lyceum Theatre, London Sybil Thorndike
1930 Globe Theatre, London (in French, as 'Saint Jeanne') Ludmilla
Pitoëff
1931 His Majesty's Theatre, London Sybil Thorndike
1934 The Old Vic, London Mary Newcomb
1936 Martin Beck Theatre, New York Katharine Cornell
1936 Malvern Festival, Malvern (honouring Shaw's 80th birthday) Wendy
Hiller
1938 Malvern Festival Elisabeth Bergner
1939 Streatham Hill Theatre, London (Old Vic company) Constance
Cummings
1947 New Theatre (Old Vic company) Celia Johnson
1951 Cort Theatre, New York Uta Hagen
1954 Arts Theatre and then St Martin's Theatre, London Siobhán
McKenna
1956 Phoenix Theatre, New York Siobhán McKenna
1960 Old Vic Barbara Jefford
1962 New York City Center Theatre Barbara Jefford
1963 Old Vic (National Theatre Company) Joan Plowright
1968 Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center, New York, Diana Sands
|1970 |Mermaid Theatre, London |Angela Pleasence |
1978 Circle in the Square, New York Lynn Redgrave
1984 National Theatre, London Frances de la Tour
1994 Strand Theatre, London Imogen Stubbs
2007 National Theatre, London Anne-Marie Duff
2016 Donmar Warehouse, London Gemma Arterton
2018 Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Condola Rashad
Film
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*In 1927 Lee de Forest filmed Thorndike and Casson in the cathedral
scene from 'Saint Joan' in a short film made in his Phonofilm
sound-on-film process.
*In 1957 the play was adapted for film by Graham Greene, directed by
Otto Preminger, with Jean Seberg as Joan of Arc, Richard Widmark,
Richard Todd, and John Gielgud.
Radio
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BBC Radio has broadcast five adaptations of the play:
*1941: Constance Cummings as Joan.
*1956: Mary Morris as Joan.
*1965: Joan Plowright as Joan.
*1975: Judi Dench as Joan.
*2011: Lyndsey Marshal as Joan.
In 1967 BBC Radio broadcast four scenes from the play, chosen by and
starring Sybil Thorndike.
Television
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There have been four adaptations for BBC Television:
*1946: Ann Casson as Joan.
*1951: Constance Cummings as Joan.
*1968: Janet Suzman as Joan.
*1979: Gabrielle Lloyd as Joan.
Opera
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The play has been adapted into an opera by the composer Tom Owen.
External links
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*
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*
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* [
http://www.cbsd.com/inventory.aspx?id=7495 Playing Joan interviews]
See also
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* Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc
License
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License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Joan_(play)
