Joan’s Voices

The Malverne Players, under the direction of Ron Parella, offer a dramatic
triptych of Joan of Arc: a play in three acts taken from three different plays: Joan of Lorraine by Maxwell Anderson, The Lark by Jean Anoulih, and St. Joan by George Bernard Shaw.

Over 500 years Joan of Arc (1412-1431) has inspired countless playwrights and
composers. And few brief lives have been more dramatic. Born into the chaos of the Hundred Years War between France and England, Joan, daughter of a middle class family, claims to have visions inspired by God that compel her to gather the ramshackle French forces into a legion, and then lead it herself to cast out the occupying English and unite France under the Dauphin, who Joan will see crowned King Charles VII of France. Under her leadership the army defeats the English in big battles and brings much of France under French control for the first time in decades.

Pressing the campaign to drive the English out of France, Joan is captured at Compiegne by French forces collaborating with the English and put on trial for heresy. Charles, who owes his crown to her, can do nothing either to ransom her or rescue her from the enemy that wants her burned to death as a witch.

The themes of war and peace, fanaticism and patriotism, and “an innocent girl crushed between the mighty forces of the Law and the Church” (from Shaw’s St. Joan) make Joan’s story timeless.

Appropriate For Ages: 15 and up