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The Folger Spotlight

Director's Notes: Saint Joan

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Eric Tucker has been called “the best classical director in America” by The Wall Street Journal.  Read what he has to say about this production of Saint Joan, which is on at Folger Theatre through June 10.

Eric Tucker, Edmund Lewis, and Sam Massaro. Saint Joan, 2018. Photo: Teresa Wood.

Saint Joan was the first play that I chose to direct for my newly formed company, Bedlam, in 2012.  I have always enjoyed watching a group of actors work on a bare stage, pulling a story out of thin air, and Saint Joan felt like the perfect choice for that kind of work. It is a play that rests on its own words and ideas and not on spectacle and action.  The words, in fact, become the action in that way only the greatest of writers, like Shaw and Shakespeare, can make happen.  I knew the play could have great power over an audience; that it was both funny and moving, witty and electric. My aim has been to stay out of its way and allow Shaw’s brilliant dialogue and rhetoric to take center stage.

Joan (Dria Brown). Saint Joan, 2018. Photo: Teresa Wood.

Like Shakespeare, Shaw is able to write completely three-dimensional characters who are inspiring and frustrating, flawed and heroic, as complex as any living person. With Joan, Shaw has created one of the most exciting characters that an actor can play. Indeed, his play features an entire cast of personalities that are irresistible to embody. This may be why we have continued to perform the piece for five years and why audiences all over the country have responded so strongly to our production.

It is very exciting for us to bring this endeavor to to Folger Theatre because the text resonates so strongly today and is as relevant as when Shaw wrote it.  As a director and performer, I have found great joy and inspiration in this play and in Shaw’s Joan herself as I spar with her, fall in love with her, and send her to the stake on a nightly basis.  I am so lucky to experience one of the greatest plays ever written from the inside, and I think you’ll feel the same with just one viewing.  But by all means, come back for more so that we have an excuse to keep doing it.

Saint Joan is on stage through June 10. For tickets and more information, visit us online or call the Folger Box Office at 202.544.7077.

Saint Joan
Bedlam/Folger Theatre
Directed by Eric Tucker; costume and sound design by Eric Tucker; lighting design by Les Dickert. Production photos by Teresa Wood.

Folger Theatre

Folger Theatre is the vibrant center piece of the Folger’s public programs. With a focus on Shakespeare, Folger Theatre produces plays reflecting the breadth of the library’s peerless collection. In this unique setting, with collaborations between artists and experts, Folger Theatre produces innovative stagings that have been commended as “breathtakingly original...strikingly contemporary” (The Washington Post). Led since 1991 by Artistic Producer Janet Alexander Griffin, Folger Theatre has received 135 nominations and 23 Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in acting, direction, design, and production. During the recent seasons Folger Theatre has received the Outstanding Resident Play Award for its productions of Measure for Measure in 2007, Hamlet in 2011 and The Taming of the Shrew in 2013. Other highlights from Folger Theatre’s producing history include these Helen Hayes Award recipients or nominees for outstanding production: Romeo and Juliet (2013), Orestes: A Tragic Romp (2010), Henry VIII (2010), Arcadia (2009), Macbeth (2008), The Two Gentlemen of Verona (2006), Melissa Arctic (2006), She Stoops to Conquer (2002), Shakespeare’s R & J (2001), Much Ado About Nothing (1998), and Romeo and Juliet (1997). — View all posts by Folger Theatre

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[…] Bedlam presented by Folger Theatre Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw Directed by Eric Tucker***, Folger Theatre, 2019 Read the director’s notes for the production […]

ENCORES: 'Saint Joan' by Bedlam, presented by Folger Theatre (2018) - The Folger Spotlight — May 28, 2021