"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!

The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde

HI.
IT’S SHANNON.

Okay, we’ve got another good one this week (admittedly I don’t put plays I don’t like on here, but this is still way way up there), by one of the greatest English writers of all time: Oscar Wilde. The comedy of all comedies, the farce of all farces, the epitome of what it means to be quippy and British and hilarious.

That’s right ladies, this week we’re doing:

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

by Oscar Wilde

This play is a classic farce, depending on the mixing up of identities and names and ending in wealth, marriage, and love for all involved. It revolves around the young, wealthy bachelor who was found in a handbag at birth (though adopted by a rich lord we never see), Jack Worthington. Jack lives a double life: In the city he is known as Earnest, drinking and gambling and courting a young woman named Gwendolen with whom he is in love. In the country, he goes by Jack, and sets a proper example for his beautiful young ward, Cecily. Whenever he wants to switch between lives, he cites his alter-ego: Cousin Jack in the country gets sick whenever he needs rest, and his brother Earnest gets into trouble whenever the city calls. All goes well until Jack’s best friend Algernon (Algy), cousin to Jack’s beloved Gwendolen, confronts Jack about a cigarette case addressed to “Dear Uncle Jack” and discovers Jack’s double life. Upon hearing of Cecily, Algernon immediately travels to Jack’s residence in the country, where he introduces him self as the prodigal brother Earnest to the already-enchanted Cecily (and her governess, Miss Prism). He proposes to Cecily, and she accepts him immediately. Jack arrives, having proposed at last to Gwendolen (who “has always longed to be married to a man called Earnest”) and determined to end his dual life. His plot is to announce his brother dead, but upon discovering Algernon masquerading as his brother, is forced to reevaluate. They go inside to dress. Gwendolen arrives, fleeing her mother who has refused to accept her engagement, and confronts Cecily with the news that she has been engaged to Earnest Worthington (Jack). Cecily rebukes her with the information of her recent proposal to Earnest Worthington (Algernon). Just as the argument between the girls gets heated, the men enter and their true identities are revealed. Lady Bracknell (Gwendolen’s terrifying mother who has completely rejected Jack’s proposal), enters and demands Gwendolen’s return to the city. Algernon requests permission to marry Cecily, which Lady Bracknell gives. Jack, as Cecily’s ward, witholds permission for Cecily to marry Algernon unless he is permitted to marry Gwendolen. Lady Bracknell does not give that permission, and the party is at a standstill. Suddenly, Lady Bracknell spots Miss Prism (Cecily’s governess, remember). She demands the return of the baby Miss Prism lost years ago, her brother’s child (Algernon’s brother). Miss Prism confesses that she left the baby in a handbag. Jack leaps up, realizing that he was that baby, and retrieves the handbag. Lady Bracknell accepts Jack as her nephew, grants him permission to marry her daughter (because nobility and inbreeding), he grants Cecily permission to marry Algernon, and everyone is happy. And then, wanting to know his true name, Jack rushes to the catalog of generals (and their families, apparently) and finds out that his name was Earnest after all.

All are happy, the play ends.

Whew that was a long summary. It’s all very intricate and complicated and witty and ridiculous. It’s a satire of the upper class, and an endless stream of perfect, quippy one-liners that make the plot so much more than my summary (despite its length) could possibly imply, so I heartily encourage you to read it. No matter who you are, it will make you laugh.

There are two brilliant parts for girls in this play:

Gwendolen and Cecily

and their scene together is one of

the best girl/girl scenes

in all of literature.

(seriously, take a look at if you’re ever doing scenework)

But today we’ll be looking at

GWENDOLEN

This is the proposal scene, where Jack (or as Gwendolen knows him, Earnest) is proposing to her. Gwendolen knows this is coming, but is delighted anyway.

(JACK: Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl… I have ever met since… I met you)

GWENDOLEN: Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you have always had an irresistible fashion. Even before I met you I was far from indifferent to you. (Jack looks at her in amazement) We live, as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits, I am told: and my ideal has always been to love someone by the name of Earnest. There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Earnest, I knew I was destined to love you.

JACK: You really love me, Gwendolen?

GWENDOLEN: Passionately!

JACK: Darling! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.

GWENDOLEN: My Earnest!

JACK: But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Earnest?

GWENDOLEN: But your name is Earnest.

JACK: Yes I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean you couldn’t love me then?

GWENDOLEN: Ah! That is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them.

JACK: Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don’t much care for the name of Earnest… I don’t think that name suits me at all.

GWENDOLEN: it suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has a music of its own. It produces vibrations.

JACK: Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that I think there are lots of other much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, a charming name.

GWENDOLEN: Jack? … No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all indeed. It does not thrill. It produces no vibrations…. I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude. The only really safe name is Earnest.

Isn’t it lovely? The British accent (perfect RP if you can wrangle it) is absolutely essential -- if you try to walk in with this monologue in an American accent (or anything else), people are going to look at you funny. Wilde has a very specific style, and unless you’re trying to specifically go against it, I’d recommend toeing the line as close as possible. That said, it’s absurd and fun.

As always,

read the play, post your version of the piece, and have fun!

This has been

SOMEONE MONO-BLOGGING

and again,

I’M SHANNON

ENJOY!