NOT ENOUGH HEAT
The Second Coming of Joan of Arc is the best-known work of American playwright, author, and lesbian feminist Carolyn Gage. Loosely based, scholars will tell you, “very loosely,” on the history of the teenage “Maid of Orléans,” who led the French armies to a series of victories over those of the English in the latter half of the Hundred Years’ War.
The 1987 play, which opens on Joan’s capture by the Burgundians, allies of the English, and closes with her being burned at the stake as a heretic, may be revisionist history, but is still a solid foundation for Gage’s thematic message: “Never let anyone write your history for you.”
Played out on the barest of empty spaces at The Actors Company, there is only the work’s modern dialogue available to weave the union of performer and audience. Even if the words were golden threads, the stitching requires clarity and passion, such as the British religiously embrace in the staging of Shakespeare.
Unfortunately, those elements weren’t adequately displayed by London-based Romanian actor Catinca Maria Nistor, and a lack of a director’s credit points to the possible cause of this. While Nistor’s performance is solid, it fails to convey the final epiphany Gage has given Joan, that it wasn’t the flame of the auto-da-fe, but her suppressed passion for another village girl that consumed Joan.
The Second Coming of Joan of Arc
part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival
Actors Company (Little Theatre) 916 N. Formosa Ave
ends on June 27, 2025
for tickets, visit Joan
