Marcus Aurelius: [to his daughter Lucilla] “If only you had been born a man, what a Caesar you would have made.” – Gladiator

One of the most ‘charismatic’ figures in French history, Jeanne la Pucelle (as she referred to herself during her lifetime) is a tabula rasa for whom every age projects their ideals and values onto. When Shakespeare wrote about her, some 200 years after her death in Henry VI Part I, her reputation in the Anglophone world had yet to be ‘rehabilitated’. However, by the time that Mark Twain and Bernard Shaw addressed her legacy in the late 19th and early 20th century, they asserted that history was on her side, adding weight to Shaw’s argument that ‘Joan’ was necessary for the evolution of civilisation, but centuries ahead of her time – her anachronistic views made her an ‘aberration’… With Catinca Maria Nistor playing the titular role, Carolyn Gage’s play The Second Coming of Joan of Arc deconstructs what we know as ‘facts’ about her life and from these, extrapolates how she truly feels about her past and her perception in the present day.

As you may have deduced, the play doesn’t take place at a specific point in ‘history’. Rather, the figure of ‘Jeanne’ is present outside of time and space, speaking instead to the audience. One of the many things that this version of Joan takes umbrage with is her status as a ‘saint’ and that for her to be given a posthumous canonisation would be as ridiculous as an anti-monarchist given a knighthood. While the argument put forward in the play makes sense within its own logic, it presupposes that the historical Joan at the time of her death renounced her faith completely, which is a leap in assumption. There are other examples where in the play this happens, but they will be addressed later.

What is undesputable is the ‘ill treatment’ that Joan received when she was captured and during her trial. There is an interesting point in the monologue, where Joan states [to paraphrase] that in an effort to ‘break’ her, the authorities tried to separate ‘her mind from her body and her body from her mind’. When she does eventualy relent and agrees to wear a dress instead of ‘men’s clothes’, it would prove to be her biggest mistake since waiting for permission from Charles VII to act (when previously she acted as and when she deemed appropriate). Gage makes a compelling argument for why Joan ‘needed’ to wear ‘men’s clothes’ – to be treated seriously by the French king and the troops who would eventually fall under her command.

One other train of thought that Gage introduces is obliquely inferring that voices of the saints that Joan heard were actually her own instincts and intellectual faculties that comprehended self-evident truths. Whether Joan herself believed it or not, here was a case of woman referring to an external authority to validate her actions, rather than do something based on her own judgement.

Through Joan’s own experiences at the hands of her jailors, Gage argues that the nature of rape is a gender-specific form of ‘crucifixion’ for women and that in some ways, the deliberate, constant threat by men to rape is psychological torture – just as bad as the physical act. Again, through Joan, Gage goes on to question whether any side during her escapades were worthy of her, as they all let her down or betrayed her to various degrees.

While this is a valid point from an outsider’s perspective, Gage again assumes that what we feel in the present day is exactly how Joan would articulate her feelings and thoughts. I would argue that if the play revolved around two or more characters discussing what Joan has supposed to have said versus what she *may* have felt or thought, then the 180 degree opinions expressed in the play wouldn’t be so jarring or be expected to take as gospel. Be that as it may, at times 21st century mores are overlaid 15th century circumstances and in this respect, the play mirrors the themes or rape and women’s status within medieval France as depicted in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel – especially with regards to weighing up what is most important for women: truth, justice or survival…

The historical Joan would no doubt have heard about the legend of Pope Joan who centuries before, allegedly passed herself as man and ended up doing well as the Pontiff for two years, before her ‘subterfuge’ was exposed. The legend would also set a precedent of a woman breaking the ‘glass ceiling’ in a man’s world and may at a subliminal level influenced Joan. It’s also worth noting that Pope Joan appears in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls and in this respect, the tone of Gage’s play mirrors the semi-non-naturalistic tone of the groundbreaking feminist play. In any case, the parallels between Joan of Arc, Pope Joan and the quote at the beginning of this review need little explanation, save that in so many areas in public life, appointments are seldom meritocratic – especially if ‘unconscious bias’ is present and one’s sex is a deciding factor for decision-making.

© Michael Davis 2024

The Second Coming of Joan of Arc runs at the Etcetera Theatre from 25th to 31st March.
https://www.citizenticket.com/events/etcetera-theatre/the-second-coming-of-joan-of-arc/