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    Modern Play Review Quarter One

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    Marcoscap2017
    The play Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw, tells the story of Joan of Arc and her role in helping France defeat England in the 15th century. The play was performed by four actors who took on multiple roles. It stood out for its excellent acting, especially a scene where one actor switched between two characters seamlessly. While the costumes and sets were simple due to limited resources, the lighting and movement were used effectively to advance the plot and create tension. Overall, the play was a well-done and engaging performance that highlighted the script and acting over elaborate production elements.

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    Modern Play Review Quarter One

    Uploaded by

    Marcoscap2017
    138 views3 pages
    The play Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw, tells the story of Joan of Arc and her role in helping France defeat England in the 15th century. The play was performed by four actors who took on multiple roles. It stood out for its excellent acting, especially a scene where one actor switched between two characters seamlessly. While the costumes and sets were simple due to limited resources, the lighting and movement were used effectively to advance the plot and create tension. Overall, the play was a well-done and engaging performance that highlighted the script and acting over elaborate production elements.

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    For my first quarter play review, I saw and reviewed the play , Saint Joan.

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    The play Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw, tells the story of Joan of Arc and her role in helping France defeat England in the 15th century. The play was performed by four actors who took on multiple roles. It stood out for its excellent acting, especially a scene where one actor switched between two characters seamlessly. While the costumes and sets were simple due to limited resources, the lighting and movement were used effectively to advance the plot and create tension. Overall, the play was a well-done and engaging performance that highlighted the script and acting over elaborate production elements.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    138 views3 pages

    Modern Play Review Quarter One

    Uploaded by

    Marcoscap2017
    The play Saint Joan, by George Bernard Shaw, tells the story of Joan of Arc and her role in helping France defeat England in the 15th century. The play was performed by four actors who took on multiple roles. It stood out for its excellent acting, especially a scene where one actor switched between two characters seamlessly. While the costumes and sets were simple due to limited resources, the lighting and movement were used effectively to advance the plot and create tension. Overall, the play was a well-done and engaging performance that highlighted the script and acting over elaborate production elements.

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    Marco Saah 10/19/13

    Modern Play Review Quarter One: Saint Joan


    The play I went to go see, and will be reviewing is, Saint Joan , by George Bernard Shaw, at the Olney Theatre Center on October 19th. The play was performed by four actors of the Bedlam theatre company from New York City. The plot of the play is based around Saint Joans life. The year is 1429 in feudal France, and a 17 year old country girl named Joan hears the voice of God and several saints, and is convinced they are telling her to take up a sword, and rid france of the English occupiers. She then goes to her feudal lord, and asks for armor, a horse, and soldiers to fight with. After these things are granted she makes her way to meet the Dauphin of France, so she can take back the English occupied city of Orleans, as well as rid other areas of Englishmen. After she successfully does this, the English come to the conclusion that the French victories occurred because Joan is a sorceress or a witch, and they set a ransom on her. This leads to Joanss capture, trial, and eventual burning at the stake.

    The theme of the play is centered around the Idea that often times, the world is more complicated, then just simply good or bad. Nearly every important character in the play is motivated to do what they do, because they believe it is for the common good. There is no clear good and evil side, just conflicts of opinions and beliefs. The acting in the play was, overall, excellent. The whole play was performed by only 4 actors, playing a multitude of characters. One part in particular stood out, when Tom O'Keefe was switching between two characters at once, by simply putting on, and taking off his glasses to show which character he was. This was very cool, and he executed it well. Another scene that stood out was when Andrus Nichols, the actor who played Joan, was arguing with the men at her trial shortly before she was to be burned at the stake. The emotion she communicated in her voice and body language during that scene was incredible.

    The play really did not incorporate any music in during the scenes, it only played during transitions between scenes, while they were changing the set.. The costumes in the play were quite interesting. Since there were only four actors that were playing many more than four characters, there was a lot of costume changing, sometimes even during a scene. This made for costumes that were not too intricate, so they could be easily changed and altered quickly. In the program, no costume designer was credited. The actors could have easily been responsible for their own costumes, because they were so simple. One example of this was when Tom OKeefe changed characters by simply taking off his glasses, or by putting on a priests robe over his clothing in the middle of a scene. Lighting played a big role in the play. Lighting was used to both create a certain mood in a scene, as well as direct the audience's attention to a specific area. For example, during Joans trial, Joan is in the center of the stage, while each of the other actors are in separate corners of the room. Joan is illuminated by two spotlights, and the other actors are shrouded in almost complete darkness. The set in the play was very minimal. In each scene only a couple pieces of furniture were used at a time, like a table, or a couple chairs. This was probably due to the fact that the stage was in the center of the room, with the audience on 3 of the four sides. This allowed the actors to be among the audience during some scenes, but it restricted the amount of space the actors had in the center of the room. This is probably why the sets were limited. In one scene they pulled a massive sheet over the open side of the stage, to simulate being in a closed room. The last scene in the entire play, is a conversation between Joan and different characters from throughout the play, in heaven, after Joan was burned at the stake. This scene takes place with all the characters seated at different places in the audience, which was very interesting. I liked the directors choice for that scene, it made it seem more casual and personal. The last scene ended on a happy note. Some ways movement and choreography were used, was in scenes where people were arguing, they would sometimes pace around each other impatiently, while continuing to bicker. This gave a feeling of escalating

    tension, and led to more intense drama in the play. The production as a whole, was amazing and very well done. The lack of intricate costumes, and sets made the actors focus more on the script and the emotion in the play. This on top of the fact that four actors were playing over 15 characters in the play made the performance extremely impressive and engaging.

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