The Second Coming of Joan of Arc and Other Plays

Hurray for Carolyn Gage! If you want to know something about PASSION, read Carolyn Gage. She is the very model of a 21st century renaissance woman. Her play "The Second Coming of Joan of Arc" is as if the outcry of true craft asserting itself after centuries of languor since the Bard. Having grown up in Catholicism amidst the plaster statues and rituals of false petitions to the saints, I finally "GET" Joan. Never having read this playwright's works, I now finally see with reverence and force what so many people of spirit and literacy have been telling me for years. Carolyn Gage is the personification of the masques. The plays stir me, provoke me; I revel in my own spirit, in Joan's spirit and in the spirit of others. For Carolyn Gage, it's obvious the play's the thing. It's as though Aphra Behn has been reincarnated but with all the experience of those who've gone between. I'm so thrilled to have discovered the playwright Carolyn Gage. She gives new meaning to the cause of literacy in the 21st Century. I highly recommend that this book be available and read by everyone!

I was fortunate enough to see "The Second Coming" produced with the author in the lead role. What a fabulous experience! This play is firmly situated in literary tradition as it imagines the circumstances of Joan's life, as a woman of her time. Gage's feminist politics are uncompromising in this piece, as in all her work, as she fearlessly names patriarchy as responsible for the ills women suffer. The other plays in this book are equally good and powerful in that several of them are brief and would not be difficult to stage. While this book is an excellent read, the real power of this work is as performance. Women need more roles, better roles, real roles, in theater, and this book has them. Gage's gift for seeing and giving voice to the feminist potential in every story is on display in this remarkable book.

Carolyn Gage is a very talented playwright. She is undoubtly one of the most gifted writers of this generation. Gage invites us to stand against a male-dominant world in which women are not allowed to have their own voice. In this aspect, the author makes sure to build a great esthetic, literary and dramatic portray of women's cognitive world. Therefore, the lesbianism turns out to be the most sensible and inteligent expression of female needs. It's not a mere accident. It's a way of protecting voices of womanhood. Naive people can be shocked by the deconstruction of Joan. Does it matter wheter it is true or not? Is there a single truth? The facts are always controversial. And Gage's plays are an outrageous shout of this reality.Joan of Arc is a legend. Jeanne Romee is the person behind the myth. That is the subject Gage tries to apreehend. And she does it magnifically. When we read Gage's Joan we are before a woman. Not a saint.

i was introduced to the first piece "The Second Coming of Joan of Arc" by the writer herself. she came and performed it at our local university. she simply blew me away.. the words that she spoke, they were unbelieveable. here was someone performing a piece like this.. a piece that shows truth beyond the patriarchial system in which we live.. here is a woman who has the courage to do it publicly. this was the first time i'd heard my radical lesbian feminist voice in a public forum, in a public forum that included non radical lesbian feminists. this fictional work should be applauded, this fictional work is inspiring. this fictional work holds nothing back and shows how patriarchy has hurt those who have come before us and how it will hurt those of us here now and those who will come next. this work and the rest of carolyn's work gives me hope that patriarchy will die.

The "true" stories are unimportant to know and/or believe in reading this work -- what matters are the stories that these women set forth and proclaim -- which are true statements as to the treatment of women -- and that Gage does with a frightful power that will shake you to your core.I highly recommend this book -- and if you ever have a chance to see one of the plays from it performed -- do so!