Mother of the Maid

"The play, directed by Matthew Penn with tight precision and intensified emphasis on key situations, goes where other dramas about Joan have not—emphasis on her family in relation to all that took place...It is Close who makes this her play...One walks away with deep feelings both for Joan, so effectively played by Van Patten, and for her hitherto overlooked mother, brought so amazingly to life and into our minds by the brilliance of Close’s acting and the perceptive writing by Anderson.” Full Review

“The fact that we know the end doesn't detract one iota from Anderson's thoughtful, thought-provoking, and timely play...Led by Close in a stellar performance...’Mother of the Maid’ now resonates more profoundly than it did at its world premiere...Penn confidently directs the play's dozen or so scenes with vigor and grace, aided by Anderson's smart revisions to the script, which she has tightened and polished...Top-notch acting also keeps the production consistently engaging.” Full Review

"I’m frankly hankering right about now for more stories in which the heroine takes action before, or rather than, being acted upon. 'Mother of the Maid,' the quietly piercing, luminous new play now running at the Public Theater, gives us two such characters, lifted from life—one an iconic figure, one fleshed out by playwright Jane Anderson’s vibrant imagination and astute take on historical and intergenerational dynamics." Full Review

“Anderson’s play tells the familiar story of Joan of Arc, but with a twist...Anderson has penned a sturdy play that effectively draws us in...Her semi-colloquial dialogue is refreshing in its directness...‘Mother of the Maid’ relies solely on its emotional wallop to make an impact, which it does...Close is majestic and passionately fervent...Van Patten gives a luminous, no-nonsense performance...The rest of the cast is top-notch...directed with lucidity and coherence by Penn.” Full Review

“As Isabelle Arc, Glenn Close is a no-nonsense, straight-talking, country woman...This is Isabelle’s story...And as a human tale of love, adoration and the costs of commitment and passion, it’s hardly a sorry one. It’s a story so human, it’s divine. Close is on stage for nearly every moment, rooting our focus and solemnly embracing the action...Close’s careful performance choices as the mother of a child who dreams of leading an army will break your heart.” Full Review

“Close’s performance...is a triumphant blend of sharp sense and passionate sensibility, of an old pro’s expertise and a newcomer’s enthusiasm...Ms. Anderson’s robustly sentimental play, a take on a saint-in-the-making from a parent’s perspective, provides an old-fashioned showcase for the kind of acting with a capital A that once had Broadway theatergoers queuing around the block...The supporting cast does well by Anderson’s conversational, expletive-laced dialogue.” Full Review

“Anderson’s play, in a wonderfully acted production...is amusing, moving, incongruous, just plain odd and riveting. What may be most fascinating about it is that...the play is rooted in the historical record...What Anderson focuses on is not Joan’s stubborn virtue but Joan’s pain, and her family’s grief...If the world might not have been dying for yet another dramatization of the story of Joan of Arc, ‘Mother of the Maid’ at least has something fresh to show us.” Full Review

"Anderson is too adept at finding ways to illuminate extraordinary aspects of ordinary women's lives. And so, the mother she's chosen to retell the Joan of Arc story has a grandness that resists dumbing down...Close is not just the box office magnet here, but magnificent. Her Isabelle is universal, time transcending woman...Van Patten's Joan is a Maid with whom it's easy to identify...Van Patten is at her best in the second act...Definitely a display of bravura acting you won't want to miss.” Full Review

“In her absorbing new drama, Anderson again puts a behind-the-scenes woman where she belongs: center stage...Close gets to share the stage with the equally vivid Van Patten...Where Close is classic and very studied, Van Patten is modern...For over two hours...Close and Van Patten perform in entirely different universes, and do so brilliantly, but their final scene together finds them completely on the same page, bonded, and bathed in each other’s love.” Full Review

"Close powerfully plays the devoted mother of Joan of Arc...A witty and piercing play...This production is the most impressive and perceptive of the brace of underpar Joan of Arc-themed theatre pieces...Anderson perfectly melds the comedy and drama of making the historical and mythic domestic and earthy...’Mother of the Maid’ asks what it must have been like to have been related to Joan...Close plays Isabelle with a focused fierceness." Full Review

“An intimate and involving play...A moving, poignant mother-daughter drama; at its heart is the age-old story of a beloved child leaving the nest, only in this case on the wings of angels, and with a bit more at risk. Van Patten holds her own with Close...Most of the action occurs offstage, but the narrative never feels explanatory...A familiar historical tale told from a different perspective, breathing new life into an ever-beguiling warhorse, anchored by a pair of outstanding actors.” Full Review

"The family at the center is one you’ll recognize. Last name: Arc...Anderson focuses here on her mother Isabelle (Close, in a heart-wrenching performance)...Under director Matthew Penn, the action moves seamlessly from the Arcs' humble farmhouse to the sumptuous palace of King Charles to a desolate prison cell. It's hard, though, to take your eyes off Close as she delivers an exquisite and honest display of emotional range...The final scene is a knife in the gut." Full Review

"Even coming from Close, this third-person narration is a little clumsy…After this clunkiness, the play recovers and soars to heavenly heights…The play deftly tackles class differences. Isabelle interacts with Nicole, a lady of the court…These scenes are much more effective than the predictable fights between Joan’s brother Pierre and her father…‘Mother of the Maid’ is a necessary play…It forces us to contemplate what other mothers of famed martyred figures we’re forgetting." Full Review

“A thoroughly entertaining historical drama...Fortunately, there's a fully charged star at stage center...Close creates a character so indelible and incandescent that all eyes remain on her and not the world-historical character standing beside her...'Mother of the Maid' may seem at times to hail from another era, but thanks to its solid construction and plainspoken manner, it makes the best argument yet for the continuing relevance of Joan's story for today's audiences.” Full Review

“Somewhat quirky, often intriguing drama...As played by Close, Isabelle is a gritty, hearty woman...If the Arcs come off a bit like a medieval version of a contemporary celebrity family, that appears to be the intent of Anderson and Penn, as they mix the language and attitudes of the 15th and 21st Centuries...To see Joan as a daughter through the eyes of her mother is an angle that hasn't been tackled...making 'Mother of the Maid' a unique, and...an interesting and entertaining venture.” Full Review

“As a showcase for the talents of the marvelous Glen Close, Anderson’s play is an unqualified success. Beyond that, its merits are less clear...The first act contains considerable humor, occasionally resembling a family sitcom. The second act darkens and offers powerful monologues...The actors are all fine, with Close more than fine...The direction is smooth. While I found the play a bit wobbly in its tone, I was grateful for the opportunity to see Ms. Close up close." Full Review

“No one will ever love you like your mom, not even if you are a saint-in-training. That's the perspective playwright Jane Anderson brings to the Joan of Arc saga...with the indomitable Close giving a powerhouse performance in the title role...And even though we know how Joan's story must end, it is in watching Isabelle, in Glenn Close's towering, sometimes gut-wrenching performance, that we begin to understand the very human side to this oft-repeated tale." Full Review

“By assuming the perspective of Joan’s mother and grounding the story in more mundane realities, Anderson makes Joan’s journey seem all the more remarkable, though the most sensational moments take place off stage...Not surprisingly, Close has no trouble galvanizing the story around her character’s perspective with a striking performance. Five hundred years on, there’s little new to discover about Joan’s story but to see it as a human one.” Full Review

“Anderson’s new play shifts the focus from Joan herself to Isabelle, the woman who raised her. Played by the always astonishing Close...At its core, this is a story every parent can identify with...We know that Joan’s terrible fate is sealed, but that doesn’t make the inevitable end any less heartbreaking: Close’s desperate efforts to bring her child home safe would bring tears to a statue’s eyes...Simple in structure but emotionally complex, it justifies raising Saint Joan from the dead yet ... Full Review

“As a title character in Anderson’s eccentric and startlingly play, Close takes on history and wins...’Mother of the Maid’ reunites the actress, as good here as you’ve seen her, with Anderson and director Matthew Penn. The three play off one another to great effect – Close’s regal demeanor an ironic counterpoint to Penn’s stark staging and Anderson’s near-comic workaday dialogue...After all the stylized wisecracking and winking, Anderson’s tale hits, when it hits, hard.” Full Review

“Not only is the plot wanting, the writing is stiff and uneven. One minute it sounds vaguely 15th century and the next minute we are hearing phrases like, ‘check this out’, and, ‘I’ve got it covered’...In addition, the characters are not clearly defined. Close swings like a pendulum...She has no clear path in this play, and because she is the fulcrum, the play is out of balance. The result...is an altogether pedestrian production that cannot decide what it is or why.” Full Review

“Though its form and tone are more TV-ish than strikingly theatrical, ‘Mother of the Maid’ succeeds at a hard job: rehumanizing a myth...Anderson has threaded a tricky needle: She’s created a good human, not a perfect one but a really good one, and without an overabundance of sentimentality, she’s kept us interested in her...If anything disrupts 'Mother of the Maid’s' effective feel for very real domestic and social dynamics, it’s a theatrical rusticness in the actors’ approach to the language.” Full Review

"The play takes a long time to get going and – in its early stages at least – skirts dangerously close to Monty Python territory. What redeems it and pulls it – movingly – towards a climax which although always historically inevitable seems both shocking and avoidable, is Close's ability to register every fleck of thought and emotion while apparently doing very little." Full Review

"As Isabelle Arc, the Mother of the Maid, Close mesmerizes, forcing by pure majesty to make us pay attention to this simple non-majestic soul...The play’s a bit forced and casually written, somewhat similar to the much smarter and deeper 'Doll’s House, Part 2,' in the way it blends a modern flair of language with characters we know from theatrical history." Full Review

“Close puts all emotive stops out...Close is entirely convincing as an illiterate woman fighting for her daughter’s destiny...’Mother of the Maid’ is a vehicle for Close, it also serves as that for Van Patten...Van Patten is outstanding...Anderson puts forth a Joan not previously seen often, or at all...The playwright unfolds a sturdy story marching steadily along but not soaring...As a result, her drama is commendably earnest but only intermittently enthralling.” Full Review