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Massive columns lavished with gold leaf tower heavenwards: Reims cathedral is like a forest of redwoods in the realm of King Midas. Silently sliding panels transform it into a council chamber with sheer marble walls that might be anywhere from the Vatican to Washington, echoing and imposing. Designer Peter J. Davison has certainly done a grand job. Theatre Clwyd presents Saint Joan with almost RSC-ish splendour. Imogen Stubbs leads a distinguished cast including Peter Jeffrey as the chillily sophisticated though not heartless Inquisitor.
Personally, I'm not certain Shaw's popular play, though this may be heresy, deserves quite so much glory. At points, Gale Edwards's generally highly impressive production is almost over the top. There is a swell of timpani and strings as Joan is revealed in tableau, sword raised, silhouetted against a blazing crucifix of light. Then again, stirring stuff is in the spirit of the play.
On the other hand, the comedy can be a bit lame, with squires exclaiming "Gosh" in 1429 and all that, and the Dauphin as the drip of all time. Jasper Britton is funny with his beanpole of a body collapsed into a wimpy walking zed (on the serious side, suggesting a handicap makes him the scorned odd-man-out in a land of warrior-nobles). However, Britton does ham it up a bit, tugging fearfully at his sackcloth cardie with his thighs camply clamped together, while Andrew Jarvis's Captain la Hire swaggers around as if he's still got a stallion between his legs.
Shaw can be somewhat wordy. Bruce Purchase's archbishop has not yet got his lines carved in stone, and some of the accents are here and there. But most of the cast shoulder rhetoric with emotional thrust and firm flamboyance. Philip Quast's Dunois, his breastplate aglimmer, strides downstage without batting an eyelid to deliver an incongruous spot of sub-Gerard Manley Hopkins ("Mary in the blue snood, kingfisher-colour: Will you grudge me a west wind?") before Joan arrives to go into battle with him and free Orleans. Stubbs, with flame red hair and burning with Christian zeal, drives through her speeches with husky fierceness and a childlike zest, even when she is condemned to death, broken-winged after imprisonment.
Shaw's historical drama still has political bite. He etches the cynical calculations and personal weaknesses of the politically powerful with acidic accuracy. A pair of brogues peeking out from under a rustle of black cassocks hints at modern-day relevance as men of the church gather like bats after blood to outlaw a woman who claims she can bring the word of God to the people just as well as they can.
