Edinburgh Festivals

Fringe 2001

Joan
Endurance Theatre

Donna Katz's Endurance Theatre has put together a highly original and - from the audience's as well as the performers' point of view - exhausting new play about the life of 15th century French heroine Joan of Arc.

Mixing music as diverse as the William Tell Overture and Eleanor Rigby with dance, physical theatre, and contemporary New York vernacular, Joan tells the story of the peasant maid who, following the saintly voices who came to her in her dreams, led the French against the English at the end of the Hundred Years War.

It is clear from the first few minutes that Katz has combined historical research with workshopping and perfomer input to develop this fast-paced piece of theatre. The stage is bare but for a number of boxes (containing constume changes) which the cast manhandle around the stage to change the scene. The cast of six, dressed in contemporary gear, each play a number of roles, sometimes as individual characters, sometimes as a Greek chorus, and sometimes halting the story to give snippet lessons on French history and medieval warfare.

First developed with students at Pennsylvania's Ursinus College, Joan comes to the Fringe from a celebrated run in New York. It is one of the most interesting and original pieces of theatre at the festival this year.