Friday, February 6, 2009

Joan of Arc (a secondhand review)

I haven't had the chance to see a lot of productions lately because my show, Any Body Home?, ran until last weekend. (Thanks to everyone who came to see it!) But my mom did get tickets to see the Boise Philharmonic and Boise Master Chorale perform a fairly recently composed score for the old silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, and I thought I'd pass on her thoughts.

Mom was blown away by the intensity of the production. The film was absolutely haunting, she said. The experience was so intense that she and Dad were completely silent on the drive home -- they couldn't process into words what they had just seen. Mom couldn't get to sleep that night. All she could see were the eyes of the actress playing Joan of Arc. The girl's expressions in scenes like the one where Joan of Arc is shown the torture chamber, or when, resigned to her fate, she picks up a dropped rope and hands it to the man tying her to the stake, stayed with Mom.

Mom said the music was excellent -- at least what she could pay attention to. Sometimes everything going on in the production was a bit overwhelming. Between the film's visuals, its subscripts, the instrumental music and the choirs, it was a lot to take in and sometimes it was hard to absorb everything. She definitely wants to go back and see the Philharmonic when the only thing to pay attention to is the music.

Overall, the production was powerful and thought-provoking. It really made Mom ponder the idea of dying for a cause.

No comments: