Tina Packer

The playwright has said that since her adolescent days she has been drawn to Joan of Arc. It took her about three years to craft this play. It begins at a peasant house in France. Joan, with her flowing hair, is contemplative. She explains, "I'm having holy visions, Ma." Inspired by Saint Catherine (Bridget Saracino), who appears in flowing white dress and cloak, Joan is impelled to cut her hair, leave home, and fulfill her mission. (Saint Catherine also steps to the side of the stage every so often to narrate and provide commentary.) Joan says of God, "He wants me to lead the army and drive the English out of France." Isabel calls this "delusional." Still, Joan drives forward. Her father, Jacques (Nigel Gore), a conventional, rough-hewn farmer, is, to understate, resolute in his opinions. The play ultimately and cogently focuses upon Isabel's response to her daughter's declarative march and its evolution.

The mother/daughter relationship is primary, front and center, and, within the confines of a small theater space, immediate and accessible to those watching. The final heartwrenching emotional scene culminates all, and Isabel's closing words, as penned by Anderson, add dramatic disclosure. Each cast member is disciplined and precise and the playwright has created importance for each role. Anderson takes a creative risk by writing Saint Catherine as an involved observer whose task it is to speak with the audience—as if theatergoers are colleagues. She will be colloquial and reference, for example, soccer moms. Anderson could have composed the script without the narrative additions. Here's one vote in favor of inclusion.

Packer as Isabelle is, for much of the production, one of a group of key figures composing a fervent family drama. At the conclusion, however, it is she who is the saddened, shaken, but still pervasive mother who must cope, who needs to express herself. This actress (a Shakespeare & Company founder, oftentimes director and mentor to many) has never been more impressive on stage.

She is joined by a refreshing mix of Shakespeare & Company seasoned performers and others new to the group. Nigel Gore, during his eighth season, has command of a character difficult to portray: Jacques. In Lenox for her first summer, poised Bridget Saracino (as Catherine) was also seen in The How and the Why staged in the Bernstein Theatre earlier this summer. Anne Troup, playing Joan, is in her first show with the Lenox-based company. As Joan, Anne's outlook and mood swings are many. Fluently and effectively, she changes from driven, passionate young woman for much of the time to anguished, lamenting soul at the play's end.

Nathaniel Kent plays Pierre, Joan's brother. Pierre is thought of, by his mother, as one who will protect her precious Joanie. Jason Asprey (in real life Tina Packer's son and, himself, a strong actor) has the role of Father Gilbert. God is pivotal in Mother of the Maid, a multi-layered work with significant subtext. Father Gilbert's disposition and advice shifts. Initially, he says, as Joan states her purpose, "It is God's will. Word about Joan is spreading."

During recent years, actress Elizabeth Aspenlieder has been featured in many Shakespeare & Company productions. She does not enter, this time, until well into the first act and does so as the exclusive-like Lady of the Court. Isabelle Arc has walked many a mile to see her daughter and she has worn down. Lady of the Court converses with her, tends to her and literally insists they she soak Isabel's feet. Aspenlieder seizes the comic opportunity and maximizes the interplay. It's a precious and neatly diverting sequence.

Matthew Penn (the person who coaxed Berkshire Playwrights Lab a year ago to take on an in-process script) directs with specificity. The second portion of the play centers upon coronation, The Dauphin of France, and Joan Arc's eventual burning at the stake ... Anderson and director Penn shift tone as the piercing, stirring relationship between mother and daughter forges to prominence. Govane Lohbauer's costumes embellish through variety. Patrick Brennan's set transfers from a humble country house to a far more upper echelon locale to a depressingly dreary jail cell and so forth.

Jane Anderson has garnered deserving accolades for adapting the fictional "Olive Kitteridge" for television's HBO's award winning mini-series that aired last fall. Some of her other plays, such as The Baby Dance and Defying Gravity, each of which received productions on New England stages some years ago, gave earlier notice that this is a versatile, expressive writer whose dialogue is solid and true. Her distinctive articulation fuels Mother of the Maid, a unique and sustaining theater experience.

Mother of the Maid continues at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts through September 6th, 2015. For tickets, call (413) 637-3353 or visit www.shakespeare.org.

Photo: Enrico Spada

- Fred Sokol