Saturday, February 14, 2015

Bedlam's "Saint Joan" -- engrossing and jarring

Bedlam Theater Company's production of George Bernard Shaw's play "Saint Joan" at the Central Square Theater.

I found Bedlam's Saint Joan engrossing and jarring. The story of Joan of Arc, a young girl who leads the French armies to victory after victory over the invading British (who, of course did not see themselves as invaders) until she is captured, tried as a heretic by the British, and burned at the stake, is a story I don't know well. The play does a wonderful job of introducing the audience to that story, and that's one of Shaw's accomplishments. The tension between the British church authorities and their military/political interests was interesting -- at least some of the churchmen wanted to save Joan, if only she'd recant her testimony and deny that she'd actually had visions from God, which she almost does, until she realizes that doing so would still leave her in a stinking prison the rest of her life, which she cannot bear.

This production itself is amazing. The four Bedlam actors play twenty-some roles! And we always seem to know which character they're playing. You have to mention Andrus Nichols, the actress who plays Joan. She's sturdy (physically and emotionally), and she projects a woman worth fighting for.

In this production, parts of the audience had to move between acts in order to move seats, to fit the design of Bedlam's interpretation. I didn't mind this (we weren't the ones moved), although this required a bit of good-natured, comic coaxing from the stage hands and actors, which seemed to jar us all out of the play, at least momentarily. Furthermore, some of the comic interpretations of the characters (I'm thinking in particular of the swishy tea-drinking, British nobles straight out of Monty Python) were so broad and stereotypical that I winced. The three hours running time seemed a bit long. It did make us want to see a full production as Shaw wrote it. Perhaps we can see it some day at the Shaw Festival.

There was an odd coincidence in the play to a news event earlier in the week. The Islamic State in Syria released a video showing their terrible execution by fire of their unfortunate captive Jordanian pilot. ISIS reveled in their barbarity. Shaw presents the British as being conflicted, with some churchmen and soldiers repenting of the manifest cruelty of burning alive a young girl. And of course, Shaw's Joan had a trial, of sorts.