"Saint Joan" by Bernard Shaw

HI.

IT’S SHANNON.

So you may not know this,

but I have a BA in History.

(I know, random, right?)

Therefore:

I love doing history pieces (inaccurate though they often are).

This week’s play is by Bernard Shaw, who we’ve seen before for Heartbreak House, writing one of History’s greatest, most notable women. Joan of Arc. She was 17, schizophrenic, and led France to victory during the Hundred Years’ War. This in 1429, when women weren’t allowed to own property, much less lead an army. She was (rather famously) burned at the stake in 1431, and later canonized by the Catholic Church. What a woman! Now, there’s something interesting to consider here: Shaw is English. Joan of Arc led the French to defeat England at this point in the war, and therefore by English playwrights is often (literally) demonized. Shakespeare does this when writing her in Henry VI Part I. Shaw refrains from it, and paints a very sympathetic Joan in this play. But he’s still writing from an English perspective, so in performance, adding… insanity? to her might not be uncalled for. Just something to think about.

SAINT JOAN

By Bernard Shaw

#herstory, ammirite?

We enter the play in 1429 with Captain Robert de Baudrincourt, a swaggering squire. His chickens are not laying eggs, and Baudrincourt’s oft-berated servant claims that the cause is a local maid who has taken up at Baudrincourt’s door and won’t be turned away. Already the soldiers are loyal to her. Baudrincourt demands to see her, and Joan enters, young and docile, asking for an escort of three soldiers and a horse to get to Charles, the defeated Dauphin. Her voices have told her that God has commanded her to help Charles drive the English from France. Eventually, Robert gives in. The scene skips to the Archbishop and the rest of the court, arranging a deception for Joan -- she’ll have to spot Charles, even though he’s swapping places with one of his nobles. She does so easily, and the population and Charles are convinced that it is a miracle, giving the reluctant prince the courage (with God) to go to war. He sends Joan to Orleans, and the west wind that had been plaguing the French for months suddenly disappears upon her arrival, earning her a loyal friend in Dunois, Charles’s general. But pride begins to overtake Joan, and as she crowns Charles at Rheims and gains power through her popularity and visions, the members of the court begin to turn against her, most specifically the Archbishop, who vows against her as she demands more battles. She is captured by the English, who try her for heresy after debating the nature of it. She is brought to court, and under the pain of their torture, agrees to sign a confession admitting that her voices are of her own invention. When she learns of the prison sentence still in store for her, she accepts death at the stake in favor of it. They sentence her to burn at the stake and follow her offstage. Warwick reenters alone, and is soon met by the repentant Chaplain and Lavenau, who bear witness to Joan’s generosity, even as she was burning. The final scene is 25 years later, on the night that Joan has been cleared of the charges that burned her, as King Charles (now the Victorious) dreams that Joan and many of the others appear to him, asking Joan for forgiveness. She forgives them one by one, and they are joined from a priest from the 1920s, who announces Joan’s canonization. Joan recognizes that saints can work miracles, and offers to rise from the dead. All characters in the room, including Charles, despising having professed to love her, ask her to remain dead. Joan’s final words are “...”

We are looking at the only woman in this play:

JOAN

Joan actually has two great speeches in this play, one at the end of Scene 5, and this one. This is the final scene. Joan has surrendered the only thing she has left -- the truth of the voices she believes comes from God. Tortured to the edge of sanity, she has finally admitted to preserve herself that the voices are of her own invention, that she lied about being led by God, and that her preference of dress, hair, and warlike spirit are sins. She has given up everything, signed listlessly away. And then they condemn her to perpetual imprisonment: “the sorrow of bread and the affliction of water”. She tears up her confession, and says:

JOAN: Light your fire: do you think I dread it as much as the life of a rat in a hole? My voices were right. Yes: they told me you were fools (the word gives great offence) and I was not to listen to your fine words, or trust in your charity. You promised me my life, but you lied (indignant exclamations). You think that life is nothing but not being stone dead. It is not the bread and water I fear. I can live on bread, when have I asked for more? It is no hardship to drink water if the water be clean. Bread is no sorrow, water no affliction. But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and flowers, to chain my feet so that I can never again ride with the soldiers or climb the hills, to make me breathe foul, damp darkness and keep from me everything that brings me back to the love of God when your wickedness and foolishness tempt me to hate him. All this is worse than the furnace in the Bible that was heated seven times. I could do without my warhorse, I could drag about in a skirt, I could let the banners and the trumpets and the knights and the soldiers pass me by and leave me behind like they leave the other women if only I could hear the wind in the trees, the larks in the sunshine, the young calves crying through the healthy frost, and the blessed, blessed church bells that send my angel voices floating to me on the wind. I cannot live without these, and by your wanting to take them from me, from any human creature, I know that your counsel is of the devil, and mine is of God.

Powerful. I'm so into it.

And there you have it! Enjoy! As always, read the play (you can get the .pdf of it online!) and post your version!

Once again, this has been
SOMEONE MONO-BLOGGING

and

I’M SHANNON.

ENJOY!

Game of Love and Chance, by Marivaux

HI.

IT’S SHANNON.

This is a very old and virtually unknown play (by anyone who doesn’t have a BFA in Theatre Studies). Marivaux, a contemporary of Moliere in early 18th-century France, was one of the first writers to give the upper classes and lower classes equal say onstage. The France he was writing from was only 50 years from its famous revolution, and several of Marivaux’s plays were outlawed because of increasing social tension. But they’re funny, farcical, and short, so there’s no reason we can’t include them on this blo. They make a very good “Oooooh, you’re doing that?” When an auditioner asks you for a Classical monologue (because really, who hasn’t seen a hundred Rosalinds?).

Without further ado,

I announce

Le Jeu De L'Amour et du Hasard

(The Game of Love and Chance)

By Pierre de Marivaux

The story tells of Sylvia, the high-born daughter of Orgon, who is betrothed to Dorante, a noble whose father Orgon knows well. Sylvia has never met Dorante, and prior to meeting him is nervous about what kind of man he is. With her father’s blessing, she decides to trick Dorante by switching places with her maid Lisette. Little does she know that Dorante, equally nervous, has decided to do the same thing and has switched places with his valet, Harlequin. The two nobles hit it off right away and immediately fall in love with each other. The two servants, playacting the part of noble, fall for each other, as well. But everyone is torn with the impossibility of their predicament! They each know that they’re not the class they’re pretending to be, but at the same time, can’t stand the person who they *think* is of the same class they are. Orgon, knowing both sides of the story, is highly amused. Finally, Dorante confesses to Sylvia (dressed as Lisette), that he is noble and therefore must fight the love he has. Sylvia, thrilled with the knowledge that the man she loves is in fact her betrothed, plots to make him marry her despite thinking she’s a servant, and involves her brother Mario to make Dorante jealous. Her plot works, and as soon as he proposes she confesses her true status to him. Both couples, happy in their respective pairings, dance offstage.

It’s a cute little farce, and Sylvia and Lisette both have brilliant monologues throughout the play. In fact, everyone talks quite a bit, and quite grandly to boot. Very fun.

This week we’ll be looking at

LISETTE

In this scene, she is talking to Dorante, who she thinks is Harlequin’s valet by the name of Bourguingnon (Borgin-yon). She has asked him what he thinks of his master, and Dorante (as Bourguingnon), while doing his best not to speak ill of his own name, tries to justify Harlequin’s behavior by citing that the ‘true’ Dorante is “a very different person.” Lisette, who has been entirely charmed by Harlequin’s verbosity and forthrightness, is offended on his behalf:

LISETTE: Disheartened? I’m not at all disheartened! How dare you speak this way of your master! I have found him to be much more discreet, more modest, and blessedly more down to earth than I expected, and have no reason whatsoever to complain of him! What is more, although I was at first surprised by his high spirits and although I  have learned today that men present to the world quite a different face from the one they wear in private, I am absolutely certain that that man, whoever he is, is very much himself! Furthermore, I like him, and would consider myself very fortunate indeed if, at the end of the day, he found it in his heart to ask for my hand. You may not think he is a gentleman, but I do, and I will thank you to take your divisive remarks back below stairs where they belong. I know what servants are, better than you might suppose, but I have never seen one quite like you! I had heard that you had spoken disparagingly about your master, and now I see that it is true!

DORANTE: I have never spoken disparagingly about Monsieur Durante!

LISETTE: Ha! It is obvious that you have a low opinion of him!

DORANTE: (Suppressing his anger) Madame, I wrongly sensed that you were concerned, when you asked me to tell you about him.And so I was attempting to do so candidly.

LISETTE: I think you were attempting to do something else entirely. There is something very presumptuous about the way you look at me. I don’t trust you. Bourguingnon. I don’t trust you, and I don’t like you.

All of this should be delivered with top working-class pizazz and sass. Lisette is a recurring character throughout Marivaux’s plays (as the sassy maid, basically) and always has lots of comedic relief and attitude to provide to the play. So have fun!

And as always,

Buy, Read, Post!

This has been

SOMEONE MONO-BLOGGING

and again,

I’M SHANNON

ENJOY!

Proof, by David Auburn

HI.

IT'S SHANNON.

This is a very smart, moving play made into a movie in 2005 starring Gweneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, and Jake Gyllenhal. I'm not 100% in love with the casting of the movie, but the play itself has some very well-written scenes and excellently characterized arguments. A teacher I had once told me that fight scenes are all about characters trying NOT to fight -- just like crying onscreen is about trying NOT to cry and playing drunk is about trying to sober up. It's the conflict of resisting the impulse that makes a character compelling, and this play has some brilliant scenes which flourish by merit of that struggle.

PROOF

By David Auburn

Proof tells the story of Catherine, the brilliant, math-minded daughter of an even more brilliant mathematician (Robert). Her father's brilliance dissolved into lunacy not long after a mathematical discovery that made him famous. Catherine was left to care for him, quitting school and living in their Chicago home while her sister Claire moved to New York and got a job to fund their father's care. At the onset of the play, Robert has died. Hal, one of Robert's students in later years, is at the house, going through the graphomaniacal scrawls Robert wrote in in a series of notebooks. He asks her out, but an argument ensues. The next day is the funeral, and Claire, Catherine's sister, has come in from New York to take control. At the funeral, Hal and Catherine hook up, and he spends the night. She gives him a key to a specific drawer in her father's study. The next morning a hungover Claire breaks the bad news: She is sure she knows best and suspects that Catherine, who inherited Robert's genius, might have inherited some of his tendencies towards insanity as well. She urges Catherine to return to New York with her, and confesses that she's already sold their father's house. Catherine (understandably), is furious. Hal comes out, amazed and bearing a notebook -- the proof in the notebook is a mathematical discovery beyond belief. Catherine reveals: she wrote it. Claire and Hal refuse to believe her -- it doesn't end well. The next day, Claire rebukes Hal for his behavior towards Catherine, but urges him to take the notebook and investigate it at the University. The following morning, Catherine prepares to leave with Claire to go to New York -- she is resigned and has no choice.  Hal comes to see her off, and asks him to please, please explain the proof to him. She accepts, and the play ends.

We will be looking at

CATHERINE

(Claire’s also a great part)

This scene happens at the beginning of the play, during Hal and Catherine’s first fight, and he’s asking to continue to come back and go through her father’s notebooks, claiming that someone needs to know whether or not Robert was actually insane, or whether there’s genius in one of the books that could be published.

HAL: Please. Someone should know for sure whether ---

CATHERINE: I LIVED WITH HIM. I spent my life with him. I fed him. Talked to him. Tried to listen when he talked. Talked to people who weren’t there… Watched him shuffling around like a ghost. A very smelly ghost. He was filthy. I had to make sure he bathed. My own father.

HAL: I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have…

CATHERINE: After my mother died it was just me here. I tried to keep him happy no matter what idiotic project he was doing. He used to read all day. He kept demanding more and more books. I took them out of the library by the carload. We had hundreds upstairs. Then I realized he wasn’t reading: he believed aliens were sending him messages through the dewey decimal numbers on the library books. He was trying to work out the code.

HAL: What kind of messages?

CATHERINE: Beautiful mathematics. Answers to everything. The most elegant proofs, perfect proofs, proofs like music.

HAL: Sounds good.

CATHERINE: Plus fashion tips, knock-knock jokes -- I mean it was NUTS, okay?

HAL: He was ill. It was a tragedy.

CATHERINE: Later the writing phase: scribbling, nineteen, twenty hours a day… I ordered him a case of notebooks and he used every one.

I dropped out of school… I’m glad he’s dead.

HAL: I understand why you’d feel that way.

CATHERINE: Fuck you.

The last line of this monologue is optional, but since so much of it is directed at someone not in the scene, I thought it would be good to kind of clue back into Hal as your scene partner at the last moment. Take it or leave it. :)

As always,

Buy, Read, Post!

This has been

SOMEONE MONO-BLOGGING

and again,

I’M SHANNON

ENJOY!