mother of the maid | responses

I'm going to do something a little different here. I'll give you snippets of a couple reviews, and then print Steven Gomez's piece in full because I think it's such a fine piece of writing. It does what critics do at their best, enhancing the value of my own experience with the writer's own rich insights about the production. It appreciates the work - not only in the sense that it finds value in the work, but also in the sense that it adds value, just as the value of a rare book or a treasured work of art appreciates in value as time goes by.

"Anita Wittenberg delivers a powerful performance. She gives Isabelle a near perfect balance of maternal love, fear, and exasperation. While Wittenberg feeds off the equally polished performances of Ian Butcher as husband Jacques and Raes Calvert as son Pierre, it is unsurprising that the biggest emotional connection comes during scenes with daughter Joan. Played with mesmerizing clarity by Shona Struthers, this emerging actor last seen at Pacific Theatre in the ensemble piece The Wolves in 2018, is one to watch. Struthers is so convincing here as “The Maid of Orléans” you’ll almost wish the playwright gave her more stage time. A welcome start to Vancouver’s theatre season. Uniquely satisfying."
Mark Robins, Vancouver Presents

"Truly great scenes... Both Anita Wittenberg as Isabelle and Shona Struthers as Joan are at their best portraying these moments of profound grief; their final scene together, as Isabelle dresses Joan for the gallows, distills the spirit of the entire play into one heartbreaking scene, pulled off wonderfully. It’s Struthers who really brings it home here, when Joan’s courage finally breaks and she just disintegrates with terror. It’s so hard to watch, and so remarkable."
Katherine Dornian, The Georgia Strait

"A powerful start to the season! Every mother of every child who charges towards independence in those glorious, infuriating and cocky adolescent years was on stage."
Lorri Romhanyi, audience

*

As Strong as Death
Mother of the Maid at Pacific Theatre
by Steven Gomez

There are some complicated saints in the official canon lists. Among them is Joan of Arc, the French teenager who, if she lived today, would be labelled a religious extremist for proclaiming God had commanded her to go forth and slaughter the English. No doubt many a tourist who’s tried to ride the Tube feels the same way, but they’re not so fanatic as to do it. Joan is a complicated part of Christian history, one that tends to offend modern sensibilities when we consider her in the abstract.

So imagine what it was like to be her mother; to consider Joan not in the abstract, but as part of your own body; to have always the awareness of the umbilical cord that binds you irrevocably together, even to the stake.

Jane Anderson’s Mother of the Maid, receiving its Canadian premiere at Pacific Theatre this fall, makes that imaginative leap and then some. The modern style of dialogue is at first a bit jarring for those used to the elevated diction of a typical period piece, but it keeps us firmly out of abstractions and lets us feel the complicated reality.

Joan (Shona Struthers) tells her mother Isabelle (Anita Wittenberg) about her visions of St. Catherine as though they were having the Talk, or even as though she were coming out, and we at once know this could be our family. Someone breaking the mold is difficult for any family to take. And, as usual, the mother is the rock on which everyone stands.

What takes more strength: to march an army into battle against overwhelming odds, or to walk three hundred miles in the mud just to see your daughter at court? To let the enemy execute you as a martyr, or to bathe your daughter for the last time in her prison cell, giving her the news from home, before they take her away? By the curtain call, I had no doubt which of these women was the real martyr.

We know, of course, where the story goes. Tragedies are not known for their plot twists. But here the tragedy is not Joan’s but Isabelle’s, who is chained to the “Maid of Orléans” not by faith in her miracles or her mission, but by her own will and love. Love, says the Bible, is as strong as death. It’s a chain that cannot be broken by anything but fire, and truly not even then. It’s what gives Isabelle her strength and even her reason for being; it pulls her through the narrative and she submits with disarming matter-of-factness. She knows what love is and doesn’t balk at its demands.

The whole cast does a fine turn, with honest performances of relatable characters, and the most important role of all is also the best. Wittenberg fully realizes Isabelle’s emotional scope as she’s thrown around by “God and his bloody plans”, reminding us from beginning to end that a saint’s piety doesn’t hold a candle to a mother’s devotion. And as she screams her daughter’s name for the last time, we know with absolute assurance that she is the one being burned alive.

Reprinted from EtCetera

oct 11 | eisenhauers | bez arts hub

The Eisenhauers are PT favourites. before relocating to the Interior a few years back, Sheree Plett and Jeremy Eisenhauer played a lot of Christmas Presences, and were the musicians in Jesus My Boy. They'll be back in the Lower Mainland October 11, playing at the intimate Bez Arts Hub in Langley. As always, they're in town when I'm not! So I'll have to rely on you to enjoy them on my behalf.

THE EISENHAUERS
fri oct 11 @ 8pm
#102 20230 64th Ave, Langley, British Columbia V2Y 1N3
(604) 881-2426
hello@bezartshub.com

tickets

karina svalya paintings | dal schindell gallery | regent college

There's a stunning exhibition of new paintings at the Dal Schindell Gallery. The artist is Karina Svalya, who I met in the Vocation Of The Artist seminar a few years back when I co-taught it with Loren Wilkinson. Large, vivid, painterly studies of African wildlife. Truly extraordinary work. If anything takes you out to the UBC campus - such as, for example, a visit to the Regent Bookstore, the largest theological book shop on the continent - you must make a point of viewing these remarkable works. I attended the opening, but intend to return soon when I can spend more time in the presence of these extraordinary paintings.

ON THE SIXTH DAY
by Karina Svalya

sep 11 - oct 9 | mon-fri 8:30-5, sat 12-4
dal schindell gallery, regent college
5800 university boulevard, vancouver

This exhibition features large scale portraits in oil of safari animals, giraffes, zebras, elephants, rhino, and lions.

a feast of soul food movies at VIFF

I don't think I've ever seen such a line-up of Soul Food Movies at the Vancouver International Film Festival! Terrence Malick can be extraordinary or extraordinarily bad, but his new film looks to me like it might well land solidly in the first of those two categories - which can even mean "masterpiece."  There's a Joan of Arc film, an exciting companion piece to Mother of the Maid onstage now at Pacific Theatre; a non-doc about one of my living Christian heroes, Bryan Stevenson, and another about his spiritual ancestor, Harriet Tubman; and a fictionalized portrait of Pope Benedict and almost-Pope Francis, played by Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, directed by Fernando Meirelles, whose City of God I consider the first truly great film of the 21st century.  A true cinematic feast for the soul!

A HIDDEN LIFE
sun sep 29 @ 8:45 | the centre

"Described by critics as a return to the narratively driven style of cinematic milestones like The Thin Red Line and Days of Heaven, the new masterpiece by visionary filmmaker Terrence Malick tells the powerful and transcendent true story of Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), an Austrian farmer, devout Catholic, and conscripted soldier who, famously, refused to fight for the Nazis during WWII and bore the terrifying consequences of this moral fortitude. It is his unwavering faith and his love for his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner) and children that keep his spiritual beliefs intact.

"In the remote village of Radegund, Franz leads an Edenic existence with Fani and their three children, seemingly unaware of the fact that the Nazis are on the rise. When Franz refuses to fight for the Third Reich, his tight-knit community turns against him and his family. But he remains resolute in his convictions: he will not fight, and will certainly not pledge allegiance to Hitler. Hailed as Malick’s best film since 2011’s The Tree of Life, this will not only rank among the director’s most poetic works but also, perhaps unsurprisingly, be considered one of his most politically prescient as well.

"The Tree of Life spanned eons to capture the entirety of existence, and while the filmmaker works on a tighter four-year canvas this time around, the feeling that the stakes are nothing less than the soul of all humanity has persisted. This is art of salvation." - Charles Bramesco, The Playlist

Ecumenical Jury Prize, Cannes 19

JOAN OF ARC

sat sep 28 @ 9pm | cinematheque
wed oct 2 @ 1pm | vancity

"How, in the early 1400s, did a teenage peasant girl amaze, frighten, and galvanize the Christian world? This is the central mystery of Bruno Dumont’s depiction of the titular saint, stridently un-Hollywood-ized – different from any other depiction of Joan of Arc, in fact – but very sharply and purposefully focused. What does he focus on? Northern France’s windswept coastal landscapes. Towering Christian cathedrals (here Amiens, immense and luminous). The faces, odd mannerisms, and period logic of the villagers, soldiers, and religious patriarchy. The indelible, shining performance of Lise Leplat Prudhomme as a girl who had a vision.

"Just as Joan of Arc claimed to be guided by divine voices… Dumont has always followed promptings entirely alien to the usual logic of European art cinema… Dumont evokes the war sparely with an extraordinary equestrian ballet, as the French cavalry go through their pre-battle paces - sometimes shot directly from above as the horses form elaborate patterns, it’s a mesmerising sequence, giving the film a flavour that’s equal parts Brecht, Bresson and Busby Berkeley… The cathedral scenes also feature a genuine coup de cinéma in the form of a featured appearance by Christophe, the revered, weird, veteran of French chanson, who at 73, combines the voice of a choirboy with the weathered face of an ancient druid. He also provides the film’s lushly heroic score… Dumont’s boldest move, and the one that provides the film’s emotive drive, is the casting of 10-year-old Lise Leplat Prudhomme as Joan… It’s her presence as an embodiment of innocent, unbending will that gives the film its most persuasive meaning." - Jonathan Romney, Screen

Jury’s Special Mention, Un Certain Regard, Cannes 19

JUST MERCY
sun sep 28 @ 9pm

"A powerful and thought-provoking true story, Just Mercy follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson  and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he headed to Alabama to defend those either wrongly condemned or too poor to afford proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley. One of his first, and most incendiary, cases is that of Walter McMillian, who, in 1987, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and the fact that the only testimony against him came from a criminal with a motive to lie. In the years that follow, Bryan becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt and unabashed racism as he fights for Walter, and others like him, with the odds - and the system - stacked against them."

HARRIET
sat oct 5 @ 3:00 | the centre

"I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them." - Harriet Tubman

In the first major motion picture about one of the greatest American heroes, director Kasi Lemmons  and co-writer Gregory Allen Howard  present Tubman’s larger-than-life story as a triumphant, stirring ode to the abolitionist icon. Surviving under slavery in 1840s Maryland, Minty Ross escapes and finds her way across 100 miles to freedom in Philadelphia, and takes up her free name: Harriet Tubman.

Not content to enjoy her own newfound freedom, Harriet confronts the horrors of slavery with a relentless determination, and, armed with visions from God, returns time and time again to her enslaved brothers and sisters, freeing more than 70 people through the Underground Railroad. Operating under the moniker "Moses," she leads an exodus that does not go unnoticed by the slaveowners, who are hellbent on stopping her at any cost. Ultimately, this is a powerful film built upon Harriet’s courage, ingenuity, and tenacity, which led to freedom for hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.

"[Harriet] leans into the excitement of Tubman’s mission so energetically it almost morphs into a heist picture, dredging up odd romantic and religious energies along the way." - K. Austin Collins, Vanity Fair

THE TWO POPES
sun oct 6 @ 2:30 | vancouver playhouse
mon oct 7 @ 6:00 | the centre

It’s 2013 and the winds of change are blowing through the Vatican. Having lived his life to the letter of the gospel, conservative Pope Benedict (Anthony Hopkins) prepares to cede the papacy to Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce), who aims to take a more progressive approach in leading the Catholic Church and its flock of over a billion faithful. These two men of the cloth are, well, hardly cut from the same cloth, ensuring that this transfer of power will be a bumpy ride as they weigh in on - and butt heads about - their respective stands on what their fellowship requires in an era of epochal change.

Demonstrating both a keen understanding of, and deep respect for, the responsibilities that accompany such a hallowed station, director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) and screenwriter Anthony McCarten (Darkest Hour) succeed in humanizing the film’s central figures, reminding us at every turn that these are fallible men trying to balance doctrine with their own world views. Unsurprisingly, much of the credit for the film’s success rests with the titanic talents occupying the headlining roles. As Hopkins and Pryce spar over the respective merits of integrity and adaptability, divinely comic sparks fly, lending the film’s insights an incandescent glow.

steven gomez on mother of the maid

I particularly like this piece on Mother of the Maid, playing at Pacific Theatre through Oct 5. A thoughtful reflection on the play as much as a consumer report, this is the sort of review I treasure - one that enhances my appreciation of the piece as I recollect it, an opportunity to think back on a rich experience and have it deepen.

As Strong as Death:
Mother of the Maid at Pacific Theatre

by Steven Gomez
etcetera

There are some complicated saints in the official canon lists. Among them is Joan of Arc, the French teenager who, if she lived today, would be labelled a religious extremist for proclaiming God had commanded her to go forth and slaughter the English. No doubt many a tourist who’s tried to ride the Tube feels the same way, but they’re not so fanatic as to do it. Joan is a complicated part of Christian history, one that tends to offend modern sensibilities when we consider her in the abstract.

So imagine what it was like to be her mother; to consider Joan not in the abstract, but as part of your own body; to have always the awareness of the umbilical cord that binds you irrevocably together, even to the stake.

Jane Anderson’s Mother of the Maid, receiving its Canadian premiere at Pacific Theatre this fall, makes that imaginative leap and then some. The modern style of dialogue is at first a bit jarring for those used to the elevated diction of a typical period piece, but it keeps us firmly out of abstractions and lets us feel the complicated reality.

Joan (Shona Struthers) tells her mother Isabelle (Anita Wittenberg) about her visions of St. Catherine as though they were having the Talk, or even as though she were coming out, and we at once know this could be our family. Someone breaking the mold is difficult for any family to take. And, as usual, the mother is the rock on which everyone stands.

What takes more strength: to march an army into battle against overwhelming odds, or to walk three hundred miles in the mud just to see your daughter at court? To let the enemy execute you as a martyr, or to bathe your daughter for the last time in her prison cell, giving her the news from home, before they take her away? By the curtain call, I had no doubt which of these women was the real martyr.

We know, of course, where the story goes. Tragedies are not known for their plot twists. But here the tragedy is not Joan’s but Isabelle’s, who is chained to the “Maid of Orléans” not by faith in her miracles or her mission, but by her own will and love. Love, says the Bible, is as strong as death. It’s a chain that cannot be broken by anything but fire, and truly not even then. It’s what gives Isabelle her strength and even her reason for being; it pulls her through the narrative and she submits with disarming matter-of-factness. She knows what love is and doesn’t balk at its demands.

The whole cast does a fine turn, with honest performances of relatable characters, and the most important role of all is also the best. Wittenberg fully realizes Isabelle’s emotional scope as she’s thrown around by “God and his bloody plans”, reminding us from beginning to end that a saint’s piety doesn’t hold a candle to a mother’s devotion. And as she screams her daughter’s name for the last time, we know with absolute assurance that she is the one being burned alive.

Mother of the Maid is a grand opening to Pacific Theatre’s season, running until October 5. Tickets are available at the PT website

sep 29 | terrence malick | a hidden life | viff

When Terrence Malick is on his game, he makes masterpieces. Badlands, Days of Heaven, Tree of Life. His new film debuted at Cannes, where it won the Ecumenical Jury Prize, and is widely considered his best since Tree of Life in 2011. It plays in the Vancouver International Film Festival on September 29. Tickets here.

Described by critics as a return to the narratively driven style of cinematic milestones like The Thin Red Line and Days of Heaven, the new masterpiece by visionary filmmaker Terrence Malick tells the powerful and transcendent true story of Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), an Austrian farmer, devout Catholic, and conscripted soldier who, famously, refused to fight for the Nazis during WWII and bore the terrifying consequences of this moral fortitude. It is his unwavering faith and his love for his wife Fani (Valerie Pachner) and children that keep his spiritual beliefs intact.

In the remote village of Radegund, Franz leads an Edenic existence with Fani and their three children, seemingly unaware of the fact that the Nazis are on the rise. When Franz refuses to fight for the Third Reich, his tight-knit community turns against him and his family. But he remains resolute in his convictions: he will not fight, and will certainly not pledge allegiance to Hitler. Hailed as Malick’s best film since 2011’s The Tree of Life, this will not only rank among the director’s most poetic works but also, perhaps unsurprisingly, be considered one of his most politically prescient as well.

"The Tree of Life spanned eons to capture the entirety of existence, and while the filmmaker works on a tighter four-year canvas this time around, the feeling that the stakes are nothing less than the soul of all humanity has persisted. This is art of salvation." Charles Bramesco, The Playlist

VIFF

mother of the maid | interview | kaitlin williams + ian butcher

Vancouver Presents' Mark Robins sat down with director Kaitlin Williams and Ian Butcher (playing Joan's father Jacques) to talk Jane Anderson, dealing with teenagers, and why fifteenth century France is a surprisingly funny place to be.

For centuries, writers have turned the story of Joan of Arc into every manner of film, television, opera, and theatrical works. Usually told from Joan’s perspective, in Mother of the Maid, playwright Jane Anderson tells her story through a different lens.

“Anderson has stuck close to history in that she’s examined the true story of the family surrounding Joan of Arc’s narrative,” says Kaitlin Williams, who directs Mother of the Maid as the season opener for Vancouver’s Pacific Theatre. “Instead of following Joan’s story, it follows her mother Isabelle and the journey she takes as the mother to this remarkable young woman.”

To illustrate, Williams points to a particular scene as Isabelle goes to court.

“The lady of the court is also a mother from a different background than Isabelle but we get to see these two mothers interact, connect, and have this moment of kinship,” she explains. “That’s at the heart of this play. It is about Joan of Arc for sure, but I think it really is about parenting. It’s about motherhood itself.”

“It is definitely a mother-daughter story, but the entire family contributes to the story of Joan, of her growing up and how it affects her family,” adds Ian Butcher, who plays Joan’s father Jacques. ...

Not the first time Butcher has been part of telling Joan of Arc’s story, having performed in Shaw’s Saint Joan at the Chemainus Theatre Festival in 2008, it was in Anderson’s unique perspective in Mother of the Maid that got him most excited.

“Doing Shaw’s play was a great experience, but this is very different,” he says. “It’s wonderful to be part of something that’s showing a different side of her journey and is such a wonderful take on Joan." ...

Given Pacific Theatre’s mandate to explore the “spiritual aspects of human experience”, Mother of Maid does not ignore the more enigmatic facets to Joan’s story, with her visions and divine quest just as much a part of Anderson’s retelling, as it is an examination of parenting.

“One thing I really love about the play is it questions some of this,” says Williams. “In this version, she doubts herself. She’s not this pure, saintly version that we have seen before.”

complete interviews at vancouver presents

Mother Of The Maid runs Sept 13-Oct 5 at Pacific Theatre

Tickets available now

or by phone at 604-731-5518

sep 21 | book launch | karl petersen | reformed : confessions of a preacher's kid

Karl is a longtime friend of Pacific Theatre. He acted in our early Community Shows - from early days in The Zeal of Thy House by Dorothy Sayers and Daddy's Amen by Jennifer Morison, to more recent shows like Curious Savage and You Can't Take It With You - and was a big fan and supporter. I've read some of his poetry at Christmas Presence. And now he's published a memoir, which I can't wait to read; my copy is waiting for me at the Regent bookstore.

Reformed: Confessions of a Preacher's Kid, a childhood memoir
BOOK LAUNCH! Reading & Book signing
Saturday, September 21, 7pm at Grace Vancouver Church (1696 West 7th Ave).

Karl Petersen's fourth book, humorous and poignant, heart-warming and provocative, true stories of a boy growing up in a conservative subculture in the 60's.

Dutch treats and drinks
Copies available at door or online
Author's website

mother of the maid | artistic director's notes

Joan of Arc isn't new to our stage. Her story resonates with a lot of Pacific Theatre artists, feeling called to do something her community - even her family - doesn't necessarily understand or approve of.

A 1999 production of SAINT JOAN explored George Bernard Shaw's take on the girl who became a warrior and a saint, and as a contribution to the cultural part of the 2010 Olympics we brought Reid Farrington's innovative performance piece THE PASSION PROJECT to the Push Festival, melding dance with multiple projections of Dreyer's silent film masterpiece THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC.

But MOTHER OF THE MAID finds another angle. It brings us the stirring and ultimately heart-breaking story of Joan herself, but the impact is deepened by focusing on the untold tale of her mother. It is as though Joan provides the strings for playwright Jane Anderson to play, but it's Isabelle who serves as the body of the instrument, the resonating chamber that amplifies the sound and gives it richness and depth.

Jane Anderson: “Mother of the Maid is a deeply personal play for me. I had a Joan of Arc obsession when I was a young gay girl trying to come out to my mom. I think women of my ilk had that with Joan blasting apart traditional male/female roles. Then when I became a mother, I realized how it must’ve been to raise a child like me. Now that I am older, I have a deeper understanding of what it is to raise an unusual child, and how painful and exciting it is.”

As the father of two daughters who have forged lives of their own, who fought and flailed to find their independence, this play hits me hard. Now, I had it easier than many parents - thank you, daughters - but still... You never love anyone more fiercely or more helplessly than you love your own child - or grandchild, as I'm learning lately. And the thousand sharp pains and quiet aches of the many inevitable separations over a lifetime are all part of that costly love.

I suppose at one time or another we all imagine ourselves to be Joans, to one degree or another. And most of us also love a Joan or two, somewhere along the way. And so we find ourselves in this archetypal story, told with such acutely human particularity, re-living these painfully personal questions. How do we find our way in the world? What if following our calling causes pain to the people around us? And when someone we love chooses a difficult way, how do we hold on while letting go?

Mother Of The Maid runs Sept 13-Oct 5 at Pacific Theatre

Tickets available now

or by phone at 604-731-5518