Review: Joan of Arc: The Night Before by Ad Astera

by Michael Meigs
Published on October 15, 2009

'Joan of Arc, The Night Before. . . . ' has the naked force of psycho-drama, a quality that is both its strength and its weak point.

Imprisoned by the English, unransomed by Charles VII although he owed his coronation to her, the 19-year-old Jeanne d'Arc was convicted of heresy by an ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake in Rouen in 1431. From the age of 12, this illiterate girl from a peasant family had had visions of saints urging the expulsion of the English armies from France. Through force of personality she managed to reach the court of the despairing Dauphin Charles, who …

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