Review: Saint Joan at Citizens Theatre – Bold but Flawed

A Scots-inflected adaptation of Bernard Shaw’s 1923 play, as seen through an Orson Welles-esque lens, Director Stewart Laing’s ‘reimagined’ Saint Joan makes for a singular piece of contemporary theatre.

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A Modernist Reimagining

When I invoke Orson Welles, I refer simultaneously to the abstracted setting, clothes, and actions of the various personae dramatis, and to the constant narration of set descriptions and camera directions delivered most genially by chorus Martin O’Connor. Whilst he describes stylised shot compositions and lavish scenery—conjuring the castles and cathedrals of 15th-century France—the six-strong cast occupy a stage absent of content but for an erect white rectangle acting as a backdrop and creator of ‘offstage’ space.

Still, the play co-produced by Raw Material, Perth Theatre and Aberdeen Performing Arts in association with Citizens Theatre, is beautifully and dynamically lit by Michaela Fee. Her design ranges from the pylon-like beacon stage left, which pulses to the beats of Joan’s narrative cinematic adventure, to the suggestion of beams of light through church windows illuminating her ecclesiastical trial at Rouen.

The cast themselves are attired in quasi-modern dress, though these are swapped—including the rather inept Dauphin’s shell suit—when all but Joan (Mandipa Kabanda) switch from playing rival French/English nobility into the woolly hoodies of a second-act Inquisition.

Humour and Tone

The play itself is mostly intact, if somewhat sublimated, retaining much of the nuance of Shaw’s ‘Villain-free’ text and the tragicomedic satire which made the play controversial among critics of the early 20th century.

Joan may be a simple farm girl turned Christian nationalist totem, convinced the voices in her head are those of saints and angels, but she and her contemporaries speak a language inflected with modern sarcasm and deadpan wit. Her bantering subversion of the highly masculine, push-up-prone Robert de Baudricourt (Thierry Mabonga)—essential to securing the horse and armour she needs to find her King—is lubricated by droll interventions from O’Connor. Having swapped hats to become the camp’s steward, he sets a rather cheerful tone that the play maintains until talk of burning breaks it. Even then, black humour and over-the-top characterisation keep the chuckles alive.

Standout Performances

Kabanda, in a way, plays the ‘straight-saint’ to most of the punchlines, ardently believing in her divinely ordained mandate to free France from the invading English from first to last. Admirably prepossessed, she has ample stage presence. Even if it is not a role blessed with much of an arc, she has charisma enough to sustain the audience’s investment as she drives the French army from the Loire to the coronation at Rheims, fuelled on a heady cocktail of divine assurance, overconfidence and naivety.

She is the only actor on stage who doesn’t change hats: the fulcrum around whom this theatrical world turns and evolves. This they do smoothly, and (before the aforementioned Inquisition) with cracking pace. Ross Mann makes an almost likeably incompetent Dauphin Charles, before swapping to the cassock of the ridiculously torture-happy English Chaplain. Lewis MacDougall is almost urbane as the literally blue-bearded Bluebeard of the French ranks, before becoming the most sympathetic of Joan’s accusers, Ladvenu, come the trial. Manasa Tagica completes the cast, taking on several nobles before settling as Joan’s executioner.

Is it always clear which character is which when the stage is alive with theological and political discourse? No, but the text is always delivered with style and buoyed by a wave of chemistry between the entire cast.

War and Judgment

The battle scenes which attend Joan’s glory days—lifting the siege of Orleans and turning the tide of the Hundred Years’ War—are first-rate. O’Connor’s descriptions do not lose a step whilst the cast set about a smoke-filled stage with minimal actual action, but an overwhelming suggestion of violence and tumult. Yas Clarke’s soundtrack adds a touch of (naturally rather abstracted) cinematic grandeur here, filling the absence of the described visuals perfectly.

To my mind, this dynamic, character-filled opening gambit is more enjoyable than the Inquisition that follows to close the play. O’Connor, now Inquisitor, delivers a cracking monologue on the Church’s purpose—“Cast out pity, but do not cast out mercy”—to begin matters, but it then drags on quite a bit.

For, where Shaw intended the play as a conflict between parties acting in good faith, Laing strips much of the sincerity from the Inquisitors. Their continued attempts to extend mercy (i.e., not burning her for heresy) are cast as the machinations of rather one-dimensional, toxic patricians. Lost, as a result, is Shaw’s question as to whether modern democracies would censure Joan’s genius any less (being burned, at least in part for wearing ‘men’s clothes’, aside).

As Joan continually asserts her ideas of common sense — “Which other judgment can I judge by other than my own?” — she continues to raise fascinating questions of an individual’s place in society, but her interlocutors look on with a mix of supercilious dismay and disdain.

Still, the play retains some of its philosophical teeth, including Joan’s very practical confession of her ‘sins’ when faced with burning, before recanting once informed of her reward of perpetual imprisonment. “You think that life is nothing but not being stone dead,” she chastises her foes, ridiculing their ideas of mercy, and society’s continuing tolerance of ‘free thinkers’ so long as they keep themselves to themselves. Joan’s refusal makes her immolation inevitable.

The show’s stripped-down staging might make this Saint Joan more stylised melodrama than tragedy, but it retains the power to provoke thought nonetheless.

A Stylised Conclusion

Some of that style is a little baffling, however—such as why the swap to the Inquisition is soundtracked by Charli XCX, or why Joan now appears arrayed in school uniform, with inevitable suggestions of Greta Thunberg’s school strike.

Then there’s the digital players each actor produces from the bum bag each has slung across their bodies before the inquisition. What are they listening to, and why is it so important to press play with synchronised precision?

These mysteries are forgivable; Charli XCX’s ‘360’ is a fine bop, and whatever they are listening to makes no odds to the action. Indeed, for all the loss of pace, the play’s final passage makes perfectly interesting theatre until Adura Onashile’s short film is projected to replace Shaw’s original epilogue.

Where the play is nuanced and free of absolute heroes or monsters, this monologue delivered by a tarred and feathered Kabanda speaks to noble protest and the individual’s power. Simplistic and oddly moralistic, it is hard to draw a line between the Joan who has just sacrificed her life in a religiously inspired quest to enthrone a feckless King, and contemporary campaigners seeking freedom from tyranny. It is certainly not an improvement on Shaw’s original finale.

In the final reckoning, this Saint Joan is a production of two distinct energies: the first, a kinetic, witty deconstruction of history; the second, a slower, flatter march towards a predetermined moral. Whilst the sophisticated narration and compelling design are unquestionable triumphs, the directorial choices ultimately box Shaw’s expansive intellect into a corner. It remains a singular, entertaining and ambitious night of theatre – bold enough to prelude a saint’s trial with hyper-pop – but one where the style occasionally suffocates the saint.

Featured Image: Saint Joan Production Photography – image by Mihaela Bodlovic

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Saint Joan will run at the Citzens Theatre, Glasgow until 28 February 2026. For tickets or more information, click here: https://citz.co.uk/whats-on/saint-joan-2/