"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!

Wait Until Dark by Fredrick Knott

Note:  The role we are looking at today is a nine year old girl.  So this is not a good audition piece (unless you’re audition to play a little girl in a very dark play), but it’s really fun all the same.

This play is a crazy thriller with tons of twists- I haven’t spoiled anything here, so go check it out!

Wait Until Dark is the story of a doll.  A very important doll.  A man named Sam was given this doll at an airport and a young woman persuaded him to transport it across the Canadian border.  She told him it was was for a little girl in a hospital.  What Sam didn’t know was that the doll contained several grams of heroin, and that the woman who asked him to transport it was murdered a few days later.

Sam brings the doll home to his apartment, which he shares with his wife, Susy, who lost her sight in a car accident a few years ago.  She is still learning how to be blind.

A con-man named Roat and two ex-convicts named Mike and Carlino have tracked the location of the doll to Mike and Susy’s apartment. They begin an elaborate charade pretending to be police officers, and convincing Susy that her husband has been implicated in the woman’s murder, and the doll is the key to his innocence.  But, she refuses to tell them anything.

GLORIA

Gloria is a bratty little girl with a dysfunctional family.  Sam has been her father figure ever since her dad disappeared.  So, when Gloria hears that Sam has a doll for another girl, she gets jealous.  She takes the doll.  Yup, the doll stuffed with heroin is now in the hands of a nine year old.  But, Gloria feels bad, and she brings the doll back.  She tries to sneak it in, but Susy catches her.  At this point, the situation is dire, and probably deadly.  And Gloria thinks it’s an awesome adventure.

This monologue takes place before Gloria and Susy have joined forces- Gloria still has the doll hidden away.  Gloria is mad because Susy panicked over a small cigarette paper that caught fire, and she blamed it on Gloria.  

Don't you ever call me that again. AND I DO NOT STEAL! You told mother I'd stolen a doll of yours. What would I want with a silly doll? And don't you shout at me! I- don't- like- being- shouted- at! Understand?

Susy, I wanted to help you today. I only threw unbreakables. Daddy taught me that. Boy, he sure threw things the night he left. He went around the whole apartment, throwing all the unbreakables on the floor. But mother finally got wise to this and said "Well, just look at you. You can't even break anything!" And when we woke up the next morning, he'd gone.

Susy? You can call me four eyes. One day. If you'd like. But not just yet, if you don't mind.

Birdbath by Leonard Melfi

Note: if you want to read or see this play, do so before reading/watching the following.  Many spoilers ahead.

This is the story of two messed up people.  They are messed up in ways that almost mesh, but not quite enough.

The play was developed at La Mama, performed at Theatre Genesis, and on Broadway in "Six From La Mama" at Circle-in-the-Square.  It's a two-person, one-act play about Velma Sparrow, age 26, very talkative and very nervous, and Frankie, a lost poet in his 20's. 

Velma trembles uncontrollably when she's nervous(almost the entire show).  She also talks a lot.  Frankie doesn't.  So we learn a lot more about Velma than we do about Frankie.  We learn that Velma is unsuccessful around men- she's never had a valentine and that she has an incredibly overbearing mother who criticizes her for being to skinny, then yells at her to stop eating because she'll get fat.  We hardly learn anything at all about Frankie until the final scene which takes place in his apartment.

They met playing the "game of glances" at the restaurant they work at.  Frankie doesn't like it there.  They walk to the subway together, Velma shares much of her life story, Frankie half-listens but seems sort of annoyed.  He invites her to his place anyway.

Once they get there, Frankie starts drinking.  Velma gets nervous- she shouldn't be there... what would her mother say?  Frankie starts to loosen up, he sings, he tries to get her to dance with him.  It works.  It's awkward.

Finally, Velma mentions a topic that Frankie has lots to say about- girls.  First, that all the girls he's been with get jealous of the time he spends at his typewriter.  He had a serious relationship with one girl- Carrie, but she wanted to get married and he didn't and that was that.  He wants to dance with her, to touch her, to hold her.  Velma doesn't want that.  It freaks her out.  Finally, he tries to embrace her and she pulls a knife screaming at him.  This leads into the monologue...

Note:  I've chosen to give her a long beat before the monologue to put the knife away and calm herself down.  (I don't perform this beat when I do the monologue.)  This way, when the knife comes back at the end, it can be a reveal and I think it makes the monologue more dynamic.  But, starting the monologue with the knife still at his throat could also be very interesting....

When . . . we got up this morning, my mother and me, we had coffeecake and caviar for breakfast. It was a big surprise. My mother said that we were havin’ the treat even if payday was three days away yet. She said it was sort of special celebration. My mother said that she was leaving for the mountains this afternoon. She was going to a resort with a man. Harriet, my mother’s friend who lives in the next apartment, she told my mother that there were a whole lot available man at this certain resort up in the mountains, the Catskills, I think, and my mother said she was goin’ no matter what, and that I must send her money every weekend until she has some luck. She said that I couldn’t go because I would scare the men away, that I would ruin her chances, and that I was really such an ugly girl, that I looked like the mother and she looked like the daughter . . . and then she said that was why were having the treat early: to celebrate! The coffeecake and caviar . . . and then she asked me to cut her a big piece of the coffeecake and to cover it with a whole lot of caviar . . . and so I started to cut the coffeecake with this here knife, but . . .
It’s my mother’s blood! I didn’t know what to do. I don’t . . . know why I did it! I don’t even really remember that much, Frankie. When I got in the subway to come to work afterwards it was jist like nuthin’ happened, nuthin’ at all! But do you know? I thought, I thought when my mother asked me to cover her piece of coffeecake with a whole lot of caviar, I thought . . . my mother . . . she thinks my head is a hammer! That’s what she thinks! AND IT ISN’T! IT ISN’T! Tell me, Frankie, please tell me that my head is not a hammer!