Review: ‘Saint Joan’ at Folger Theatre 3 out of 4 Stars

‘Saint Joan’ at Folger Theatre | 3 out of 4 stars

By Kyle Osborne| Photos: Teresa Wood

The play is quite long—this review will be short.

George Bernard Shaw’s classic “Saint Joan,” a play from the 1920s about that most famous girl to have ever been burned at the stake in 1431, is surprisingly relevant, even contemporary.  And thanks to just four actors playing more than two dozen roles among them, it’s also lively and amusing.

Eric Tucker the Artistic Director of New York-based Bedlam theater company, directs this production and plays more than several (I lost the exact count) key roles, as do Sam Massaro and Edmund Lewis. The trio sometimes switch roles in mid-sentence, one taking over for the other. Minor wardrobe changes are sometimes the audience’s main cue that the character has changed; a hat comes off or goes back on, a jacket is removed, a pair of shoes gets ditched. If that sounds confusing, it isn’t. The changing accents and especially the physical changes the actors make with posture and movement arguably keep the three acts moving more smoothly than would otherwise be the case. The device also opens the door to lots of laughs, without being gimmicky.

L to R: Erick Tucker, Edmund Lewis and Sam Massaro

The lone actor playing a single role, quite by necessity, is Dria Brown as Joan of Arc, the title character. Playing the French teenager whose visions (voices) of Saints helped her steer a depleted army into victory against the English, before her folk hero status made her too dangerous to keep around, Ms. Brown is forceful and charismatic. Her evolution from an innocent to a stubborn martyr is gauged just right.

Of course, there’s no lighthearted way to tell the part of the story that involves a 19 year old being burned alive, and things do, indeed, get dark (literally dark, as the lights go out during a third act stretch that relies on voices only). But by this point in the evening, the play has earned its right to stick close to the source material, by which I mean History, not the playwright.

The sparse stage and lighting work perfectly for the production, keeping one’s focus on the action. On that note, the dozen or two audience members who sit directly on the stage were a bit of a distraction, but perhaps it’s because they were particularly pretty and interesting on this night. Maybe you’ll have bland faces up there on your night, or maybe you’ll purchase those seats for yourself.

Eric Tucker and Edmund Lewis

They say one shouldn’t talk about religion or politics, but what kind of art would there be in this world without them? There certainly would be no “Saint Joan”, and that would be a pity.

‘Saint Joan’ continues at Folger Theatre through June 10^th. It runs a little over three hours. For tickets and more information, please visit: https://folger.edu/