In the 15th century, a young French country girl, inspired by saints' voices, persuades the socio-religious powers-that-be to allow her to lead the French army against the British occupation during the ongoing 100 Years War. No small feat for a 17-year-old girl in a patriarchal society She was called "The Maid," "Joan of Arc," and later, five centuries after her death, she was acknowledged as Saint Joan. It is not a spoiler to say that the zealous teenage heretic warrior won the battle but lost her own war. She was captured, labeled a heretic and burned at the stake. "Half an hour to burn you, dear Saint, and four centuries to find out the truth about you!” Three years after she was canonized in 1920, George Bernard Shaw wrote Saint Joan, a straightforward drama with Shavian jolts of caustic humor, social satire and a fantasy epilogue. Shaw's play is currently featured in a Manhattan Theater Club production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. Under Scott Pask's set, notable for its hanging golden pipes that made me wonder if organ music would be part of the show, Saint Joan is directed by Daniel Sullivan. The setting is France from 1429 to 1431, while the French are at war with England who occupy much of France and has demoralized the French army. Sullivan (The Little Foxes) keeps a steady hand over a cast of major-league talents with his centerpiece, Joan, portrayed with unerring conviction by the talented Condola Rashad (A Doll's House, Part Two). Joan finds she must combat a misogynistic society and Church, portrayed by a first-rate cast, almost all men, including Daniel Sunjata as the sympathetic Dunois, John Glover as the Archbishop, and Walter Bobbie as the sly Bishop of Beauvais. Joan is judged presumptuous and then denigrated, ignored as she ignites apprehension and suspicions of manipulations by the devil. She is condemned for her unfeminine demeanor and clothing. Patrick Page is outstanding as a high-handed Squire Robert de Baudricourt, who could not abide how this young girl could just appear and demand to speak to him. (Page later portrays the Inquisitor who sends her to her death.) To get rid of Joan, he passes her on to the Dauphin (Adam Chanler-Berat) who is later crowned King Charles VI. While generally viewed skeptically, Joan still manages to convince the Dauphin to let her lead the army. The army was so powerless now, how much worse could things get? The attacks against Joan increase even as she succeeds in battle. Portrayed by three-time Tony nominee Rashad, Joan is convincing as a lanky, androgynous-looking, wide-eyed 17-year-old devoted to her mission, which is considered unrealistic from the start. "And in case the Church should bid me do anything contrary to the command I have from God, I will not consent to it, no matter what it may be.”
Rashad mixes a mien of assurance, naïveté, and outrage during her interrogators' questioning. It is a challenging role, and Rashad's Joan is skillful but lacks an indefinable mysticism. Shaw's play runs almost three hours of talky tedium and segments of provocative ambiguity, a play that might be best read on a rainy afternoon and then debated in an Irish bar.
