Saint Joan @ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
A piece of resistance for our modern times, Stewart Laing’s interpretation of Saint Joan is defiant, hopeful and delivered with clinical precision
Bold, aggressive and angry; such is the story of Saint Joan, George Bernard Shaw’s historical chronicle of Joan of Arc’s journey from village farm girl to saviour of France. In Stewart Laing's reimagining, the spectacle is stripped back and the truth of the tale is laid bare: Why do we fight against the systems that oppress us? What is the cost of defiance? Can the acts of an individual truly incite institutional change?
Every choice that has gone into this powerhouse production feels deliberate and intentional. Blinding lights flood the Traverse auditorium, rendering the audience exposed at best, complicit at worst. In her professional stage debut, Mandipa Kabanda is staggering as the titular Joan, her refusal to be defined by anyone other than herself the core of the piece. Lewis MacDougall, Manasa Tagica, Martin O’Connor, Ross Mann and Thierry Mabonga, who face the impossible task of portraying everyone else in the story are sensational, bringing both gravity and a needed lightness to the production.
It’s during Adura Onashile’s film section that the urgent relevance of the piece hits hardest. Against damning footage of protestors being dragged away by the powers that be, any abstraction that might have remained dissolves into visceral reality. In the pace of political unrest, war and uncertainty of what future lies ahead, Saint Joan is a call to arms for today’s revolutionaries, demanding that we be the ones remembered for starting the fire.
Saint Joan, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, run ended