November 21-December 1, Thursdays-Saturdays 7pm, Sundays 3pm
San Miguel Playhouse, Av. Independencia 82
$100, $150, $250

Joan of Arc - theater

"Once in every four or five hundred years, a person comes from out of nowhere and changes the world. Joan of Arc was such a person."

So says John Morrow, whose play Joan of Arc: A Vision through Fire opened in Los Angeles in 1989, and is about to have its thirtieth anniversary revival in a new production at the San Miguel Playhouse, directed by Morrow and produced by Players Workshop.

Jeanne d'Arc, an illiterate farm girl from the French countryside, helped lead the military campaign to recover France from English domination, was burned at the stake for heresy in 1431 at the age of nineteen, and was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1920. Morrow is hardly the first author to be fascinated by Joan, nicknamed the Maid of Orléans. Voltaire dramatized her in an epic poem, Mark Twain in a serialized novel, and George Bernard Shaw in one of his final plays.

Morrow wrote his theater piece to be performed by a single virtuoso actress, portraying Joan and a half-dozen other characters. Juni Dahr, a Norwegian actress who had studied at the Actors Studio in New York, was the first to enact Joan in Morrow's play, and she went on to reprise the role in Russia, Scandinavia, and in a 1992 movie version on Norwegian television.

French-Canadian actress Valérie Fortin, who last April made her San Miguel debut as Marilyn Monroe in the rock musical Souled Out, has been cast as the Maid of Orléans. Founder of the Montreal theater company Les Extantriques, Fortin is one of the most accomplished theater professionals now living in San Miguel. Peter Ross will provide live shakuhachi flute music.

Joan of Arc: A Vision through Fire will be performed in English with Spanish supertitles. Unlike the bawdy Souled Out, Morrow's play, which takes a third of its text from Joan's own testimony at her 1431 trial, is a reverent account suitable for the entire family.

The real-life Jeanne d'Arc said she was compelled to leave her peasant life to become a military hero at the urging of Saint Margaret, Saint Catherine, and Saint Michael, whom she saw and heard in mystical visions. Those visions have been ascribed by some as a neurologic disorder, and by others, notably Bernard Shaw, as imaginative genius. Morrow and Fortin have a different interpretation. "She wasn't a genius," Morrow says. "She was just very connected, grounded to the earth, and driven by confidence."

There will be eight performances of Joan of Arc, Thursdays through Sundays, from November 21 to December 1. All performances are at 7pm, except for the Sunday shows, which are 3pm matinees. Reserved-seat tickets are 250 pesos for the center section, 150 pesos for side sections, and 50 pesos for students.

Tickets may be purchased online or for cash or credit/debit card at Boleto City, Mercado Sano, Monday through Saturday, 11am to 5pm.

The San Miguel Playhouse is located at Avenida Independencia 82, and features free secured parking and taxi concierge service.

The play will feature spanish supertitles.

Tickets