Thirty years ago the Friends of the Drama, now commonly known as The Hampstead Players, performed “The Lark”, by Jean Anouilh, translated by Christopher Fry, as their first production. It seems fitting that in our thirtieth anniversary year we should reproduce this fine play, although this year pressure of time and space means that we are only able to put on a dramatised reading rather than a full production. However, with the kind permission of Barbara Sidwell, we shall be using a recording of organ music designed and played by Martindale Sidwell, particularly in the coronation scene; the poster is based on the original design by Bill Risebero; and one member of the original cast will reenact his part.
The lark of the title is Joan of Arc and the play depicts episodes from her life recalled during her trial and inquisition. These episodes are amusing and carry one along with Joan, as she persuades and inspires men to act as she wants. Historically there is no doubt that her successes at Orleans and elsewhere and the inspiration which she gave to the French troops were the turning point in the Hundred Years’ War. When finally captured at Compiegne, it was politically expedient for the English that she should be tried by a church court and condemned for heresy, in order to discredit her, rather than simply to imprison or execute so popular a figure.
Inevitably aspects of the trial and inquisition as portrayed in the play give rise to more serious thought. There is the discipline of the Church of those days, which “would not tolerate those who play a lone hand, however well intentioned”, and Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, who presides, insists that Joan must submit to the Church if she is to be saved from excommunication, albeit that he treats her as kindly as he can. There is the cold vigilance of the Inquisition and the belief of the Inquisitor that the real enemy is not the devil but man, who puts himself up against God. He holds that “love of man excludes the love of God”. The hunting down of man who will not be broken, who will not say “yes”, must go on endlessly. And what of Joan herself? An innocent peasant at the start, has she become a prisoner of her own pride? Were her “voices” the true will of God or used by her to justify her defiance?
Years later the Church revoked and annulled the sentence of 1431, and she was eventually canonised in 1920. So it is good that the play ends, not with the burning of Joan at the stake, but with a reenactment of the coronation of Charles VII at Rheims, her greatest triumph. In the words of Cauchon ” the real end of Joan’s story…..isn’t the painful and miserable end of the cornered animal caught at Rouen: but the lark singing in the open sky. Joan at Rheims in all her glory. The true end of the story is a kind of joy.”