Carolyn Gage lets us imagine a defiant, often witty Joan of Arc, after death, speaking to us about the final phase of her life when she was imprisoned and executed in the year 1130 at the age of nineteen by the English.
She tells us she never gave permission to those who burned her or for the church that took part in the burning to declare her later a saint for their PR. But then again, it was a bit of a tradition, as St. Catherine and St. Margaret, the two women whose voices she claimed to hear, had also been executed.
As for the supposedly blasphemous act of wearing “men’s” clothing, she points out that she could hardly be expected to fight for the freedom of France in a skirt.
On a bare, black-curtained stage, the actor Catinca Maria Nistor gives a passionate, inspiring performance as Joan, taking us through her life including her father’s decision to betroth her to some man without her consent, which she challenged in court, the supernatural voices she heard, which she implies were stories she made up to give more credibility to her own views, and the female best friend whom she used to sleep with until her friend got engaged, prompting her to run away. She says it was the “one crime I admit. I denied my love to the woman I loved.”
The intense, entertaining monologue never loses our attention and feels like a highly relevant banner in the fight for women’s rights.