Saint Joan

"Cauchon: If you dare do what this woman has done - set your country above the holy Catholic Church - you shall go to the fire with her." So speaks a more engaging, complex executioner of the legendary young soldier put forth by Bernard Shaw in "Saint Joan." Even if the Bishop put Joan to death for political reasons he likely believed that her execution was just. The Catholic Church's problems with Joan lingered for nearly 500 years. Her active assertion of nationalism as a holy endeavor intuited by her own judgment undermined the Catholic church's political authority, and yes, presaged the Reformation, even if Joan was not a Protestant (Shaw labels her "anti clerical"). And she willingly asserted a non-traditional feminine role (soldiering and politicking), which by its nature required non-traditional feminine behavior and dress. Reviewers who say that Joan wore armor to keep from being raped are half right, since Joan's soldiering included such occupational hazards, as with being wounded. But she did and thrived at it anyway. In fact, I agree with Shaw that the voices spurring her on were Joan's own subconcious, but that is another debate... Those who are skeptical of Shaw's ideas would do well to consider the year of her Canonization: 1920. It's no accident that a year after the Great War, in which the world's powers successfully mobilized against each other in the name of Nationalism (the churches providing prayers and getting out of the way), that Catholicism threw up its hands and recognized the genius of the young French teenager. This too as women had been called on in support roles like nurses and ambulance drivers, and were being enfranchised by their European and American nations. The play itself is typical Shaw - bright, smart, very worthwhile. None of the play's acts goes on too long. None is weak, except for Act III on the eve of the battle of Orleans, but Shaw is Shaw and seems embarassed by the warlike bluster. Joan herself, as others have observed, often speaks in lines that are taken directly from the trial transcripts. When she doesn't it's usually to give her a flash of wit that rarely seems contrived. This is Joan for grown-ups. And it is Joan for the 21st century: post-modern, the old sentiments put aside. Also reccomended: Regine Pernoud's books. If you need to hear what a pretty, chaste, tear-provoking, goody goody of a girl Joan was buy Mark Twain (I myself donated that volume to the public library when I was 17).

What has most stuck in my mind, many years after having read Shaw's book, is the fact that it's more logical to think of Joan as a protestant saint, instead of Catholic, when one considers how she rejected the Catholic Church's authority and was, naturally, rejected in turn.He makes a very good point when he says that, right as that Church was to ban her on those grounds, nothing could give it the moral right (or any other right, for that matter) to condemn a woman who disagreed with it on matters of faith. In all fairness, they should have simply excommunicated her and said: "If you think you have a better idea, then you go ahead and create your own Church".It may be a thoroughly idealistic point of view of course, too democratic for that age (perhaps any age), but nonetheless it strikes me as completely fair.If you like a club but object to some of its rules, and that club isn't willing to change for your sake, they may have the right to throw you out, just as you may have the right to start a new one on your own - but they shouldn't be given the right to take away your life for having dared to challenge their concepts.This lesson has stayed with me and I recommend this book for the wisdom it contains.

Shaw was a close friend of a Benedictine Abbess, Dame Laurentia, who "vetted" his plays for fairness to the faith. This play is fun, takes lots of bites out of politicians and clergy, and says something beautiful about the imagination. This Joan is no dolt and had to be burnt at the stake. That is a complement to her faith.

I have read this play and also performed the part of Joan on stage many times. Shaw's play brings the soul of Joan to life. A girl with no formal education - defeated the English, won a crown for a king, and was tried and burned as a witch - dead at or under the age of 23. No wonder she was made a saint. The story would almost be a horrible fairy tale, if it wasn't true.

it was so real and emotional , the physical and mental stamnia of the joan is eternal. she belivies so strongly in her voices and mission she will not give in . and defies all the court by suicide.