Mikaela Rae Macias and Jennifer Eve Thorn in Mother of the Maid at Moxie Theatre | Photo: Desireé Clarke
Teens are inscrutable creatures to their parents even in the best of times. Imagine how much stranger it would’ve felt to see your daughter ride off to lead an army, the future king in the palm of her hand, hailed as the fulfillment of a prophecy.
Every saint still needed someone to change their diapers. That’s the perspective Mother of the Maid takes on Joan of Arc, who, guided by visions of St. Catherine, influenced her way into Charles VII’s court, led the siege of Orléans in 1429, and was ultimately executed for heresy (spoiler alert) about age 19.
Moxie Theatre’s Joan, Mikaela Rae Macias, has unshakeable self-assurance about her holy mission, heedless of any caution from her family. When she dictates an ultimatum to the Duke of Burgundy, clad in plate armor, watch the other actors’ bafflement tinged with fear. This is the sweet little girl we raised?
But Joan is still a child, of course, and when her fate is sealed, Macias, a second-year theater student at SDSU, conjures some of the most convincing crying I’ve ever seen—she knows a good cry comes on in stages, even as you’re trying to resist it and keep talking, before tumbling into hyperventilation.
Though she’s the motivating character, Joan is more often absent from the stage, leaving us to digest the dizzying turns of her story through her mother, Isabelle. Moxie’s own executive artistic director, Jennifer Eve Thorn, has for a while been seen only leading talkbacks and asking us to silence our cell phones, but she returns to the stage like no time has passed. Thorn carries a mother’s indomitable will and physicality regardless of whom she’s set against—from Isabelle’s son, Pierre (Zack King), who towers over her and itches for combat; to a lady of the court (Sarah Alida Leclair) who somehow flatters and talks down to her at the same time.
The script, by Emmy Award winner Jane Anderson, demands a lot from Isabelle—perhaps too much. Its core theme is the disconnect between parents and their children; both the pride and the helplessness of watching your beloved become their own person beyond your control, with strange new ideas in their head. This alone could be enough for the play. Every scene between Macias and Thorn resonates in timeless and familiar ways despite the historical setting.
Jennifer Eve Thorn and Mikaela Rae Macias in Mother of the Maid at Moxie Theatre | Photo: Desireé Clarke
Yet Anderson is also trying to say something about the class divide, and that’s where the play feels a little overstuffed. It’s an insightful take on Joan of Arc: The nobility selects one remarkable member of the working class to lionize as a bootstrap success, sends them off to war, and fails to protect them, only to praise their heroism after their preventable death.
But there’s not much room to balance that theme with the mother-daughter relationship on top of all the period exposition. The result is stray historical details that receive no follow-up, clashing with contemporary language like the lady of the court being aware of her “privilege.”
The interstitial music choices seem out of place, too—medieval instrumental covers of System of a Down, Coldplay, Cyndi Lauper, and others whose titles are usually on-the-nose about the content of the preceding scene. They do provide some palate-cleansing levity, but once you notice the anachronism, they become more of a name-that-tune guessing game.
But these are minor complaints. On the whole, Mother of the Maid is a moving, realistic portrait of an average family swept up by the forces of history. Director Desireé Clarke deftly maneuvers around the wordy script, giving everyone the right beats to stop, breathe, and react. For me, the play’s most powerful moment is when Isabelle, unable to visit Joan, tries to compose a letter and just can’t form the words. Thorn’s speechlessness is heartbreaking. So too is the final monologue from Joan’s father, Jacques (Dave Rivas)—whose former protective gruffness dissolves into naked grief.
The human stories here are as fine as anything Moxie has produced, and well worth the script’s occasional excesses.
Mother of the Maid runs through May 22. Tickets are available at moxietheatre.com.
