About the Play:

The Lark has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.

The Lark (English-language version of L'Alouette) is a full-length drama by Jean Anouilh, adapted by Lillian Hellman. This clearly written adaptation of the classic work about Joan of Arc is a gripping look at historical fact against the background of religious mystery. The Lark is essentially a play within a play – with Joan re-enacting key moments in her life in the course of her trial. Especially recommended for school and contest use.

The Lark is about the trial of a peasant girl-turned-soldier who was condemned as a heretic and later became a saint. On trial before the judges of the Inquisition, Joan of Arc recalls compelling scenes from her life – from her family at home and her glorious victories leading the armies of France, to the wonder of her communion with Saints. She is condemned and sent to the stake but, in this surprising staging, Joan and her story are not finished.

Noted drama critic John Chapman, writing in the New York Daily News called The Lark: "…a beautiful, beautiful play … It is always the story of a simple girl who became an inspired warrior and then was tried by the church – but there have been several ways of telling it. Anouilh's way, and Miss Hellman's, is to try to tell the story from two viewpoints. One of them is how we look at the tale now as a piece of history, with our knowledge of how the girl's blundering captors unwittingly created a martyr who became forever a symbol of courage and faith. The other viewpoint has been to try to imagine what it must have been like to be Joan herself. Both approaches to this legend of the Martyr of Rouen have been splendidly realized by the technique of divorcing the drama from the confinements of time, sequence and space. Until the last moment – a thrilling and uplifting one of Joan's greatest earthly triumph, the coronation of the worthless Dauphin for whom she fought – there is no scenery in the usual sense, merely a few levels of steps and platforms, and lights. With this freedom, the story of Joan of Arc can move backward or forward without an interruption, without a jar. It begins with Joan's trial, and her tale of the voices which prompted her one day to set forth and save France from the English. And as she tells her listeners – the cold Inquisitor from Spain, the politically cynical Earl of Warwick, the deeply religious but ineffectual Cauchon and all the others – of what she heard and what she did, her story comes alive."

One of the outstanding hits on Broadway, The Lark had a pre-engagement in 1955 at the Plymouth Theater in Boston. It then opened at the Longacre Theatre in New York City and ran for more than 225 performances. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is particularly suitable for schools and play contests.

Cast: 5 female, 15 male

What people say:

"…a memorable picture of a moment that is immortal in history and exalting on the stage." — New York Times

"[the language is] simple, clear, timeless ring to it, and its directness is exhilarating." — New York Herald-Tribune

About the Playwright:

Jean Anouilh (1910-1987) is regarded as one of France's best-known dramatists. After completing his early schooling, Anouilh studied law for a short time at the Sorbonne, and then worked as a copywriter at Publicité Damour. Though his career spanned five decades, he is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, a version of Sophocles' classical drama that was seen as a thinly disguised attack on the Nazis and on the Vichy government. One of France's most prolific writers after World War II, much of Anouilh's work deals with themes of maintaining integrity in a world of moral compromise.

Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) is considered one of the most acclaimed American dramatists of the first half of the twentieth century. In an era that largely favoured lighthearted romantic plays and drawing-room comedies, her works explored the human capacity for malice, the allure of power and money, and the dichotomy between individual interests and social conscience. She was also the first woman to be admitted into the previously all-male club of American "dramatic literature", primarily on the basis of two enormously successful plays from the 1930s: The Children's Hour and The Little Foxes.