Theatre Reviews

This new work, writ­ten and per­formed by Fringe vet­er­an Keir Cut­ler, traces the career of Joan of Arc. While bat­tles are recount­ed the show’s empha­sis is on the more mys­te­ri­ous aspects of her sto­ry; her belief that she had been guid­ed by divine vis­i­ta­tions, and var­i­ous dif­fi­cult to explain inci­dents along the way. And of course cen­tral to the sto­ry is the great­est mys­tery of all. How was an illit­er­ate young peas­ant girl able to lead French armies to some sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ries in the Hun­dred Year’s War?

At the out­set of this piece Cut­ler encour­ages the audi­ence mem­bers to sus­pend their dis­be­lief tem­porar­i­ly. We live in an age of ratio­nal­i­ty and tend to dis­count things that seem out­side the realm of ratio­nal expla­na­tion. Many of the inci­dents recount­ed in this show fall into this cat­e­go­ry. To Cutler’s cred­it, although his lean­ings are appar­ent he doesn’t try to push any par­tic­u­lar inter­pre­ta­tion on the audi­ence. He just tells the sto­ry and leaves it to the audi­ence to decide what they make of it.

Keir tells his sto­ry in a usu­al­ly calm, steady voice with plen­ty of expres­sion which real­ly brings the sto­ry to life. The script is very well writ­ten and researched, filled with plen­ty of twists and turns and baf­fling inci­dents. I found the sto­ry to be absorb­ing from begin­ning to end. Judg­ing by how the audi­ence was respond­ing I believe I was not alone in this. I would be remiss not to men­tion the musi­cal con­tri­bu­tions of singer Kyla Kelsey whose musi­cal inter­ludes at a few points added atmos­phere to the show.

Not being a his­to­ri­an, I can­not vouch for the verac­i­ty of all the inci­dents in the sto­ry, but one thing I am sure of is that this is a top notch Fringe play. Well writ­ten, well per­formed, with inter­est­ing sub­ject mat­ter, and one which also pro­vides food for thought. Don’t miss this show, it is a gem.