The image of Joan of Arc in the play “The Lark” by Jean Anouy

Cherkes Vitalii Pavlovich PhD in Philology Associate professor, Pacific National University 680013, Russia, Khabarovsk Krai, Khabarovsk, Lermontov str., 50a Cherkeskonjabez@mail.ru

Jean Anouy's play “The Lark” occupies a special place in the creative heritage of the French playwright. She wasn't very lucky in criticism. There are practically no works devoted to the analysis of this play. Thus, I. G. Prudius in his PhD dissertation devoted to the work of J. Anuya focuses mainly on the late plays of the French author, although one of the articles published later is devoted to the analysis of the structural features of the "Lark" ^[3]. T.B. Proskurnikova, a specialist in French dramaturgy of the 20th century, only briefly mentions the existence of this play in the author's theatrical heritage.  In “The history of the Western European theater” a little more than two pages are devoted to this play ^[2]. There are works on various aspects of the play, but there is no complete analysis of the play yet. This article tries to fill this gap.

There is an opinion that Jean Anouy's early plays are rebellious, innovative plays, where he puts forward nonconformist heroes who seek to defend their individuality in a clash with a petty–bourgeois, entrenched society. Often these plays are contrasted with the late plays of the playwright, in which, as T. B. Proskurnikova notes, his characters agreed with the rules of the game.  “Anuy is increasingly moving to conservative and protective positions, and sometimes — perhaps contrary to his own intentions — objectively finds himself in the reaction camp. In his plays, everyday motives, which previously received farcical coverage, increasingly acquire a poetic sound, and heroics are questioned and discredited.” ^{[2, p. 116]} The French playwright seeks to give the reader a lesson at the sunset of his work, moralizes, speaks the truth to the eyes, but at the same time his characters lose some passion inherent in early plays. The watershed between these two periods is the play “The Lark".

Thus, “The Lark" is a turning point play, after which the whole poetics of Anuya's dramaturgy changes. As if the writer had turned to another road, changed his basic settings.

This play was written after the events of the Second World War (1953). The crushing defeat of France in 1940 by the German army, the years of occupation and the Vichy regime, insignificant participation in the defeat of the Hitler regime – all these events somewhat resembled the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Then the French historian Jules Michelet recreates the myth of Joan of Arc in the canonical form that almost any educated European now reproduces. Jean Anouy, after either the victory or the disgrace of France in the Second World War, again turns to the image of the French folk heroine. But if J. Michelet needed precisely the myth of the invincibility of the French nation in the face of any difficulties, then Anouy set himself a slightly different task: he is interested in the possibility of the existence of a positive hero in general.

The very problem of the positive ideal has always worried the artists of the word. To embody the ideal image is not just difficult, but as if impossible by definition. After the discoveries of realism, numerous theories about the duality of human character, about the eternal struggle in the soul of every good and evil, it began to be difficult to seriously talk about an unambiguously positive hero.

Jean Anouy is undoubtedly a writer who actively uses literary traditions. The plot of Jeanne d’Ark is another attempt of the writer to rewrite the traditional images of world literature in his own way. He not only conducts a dialogue with the great French historian, he includes in the dialogue the tradition of French neo-Romanticism (E. Rostand, J. Verne, M. Maeterlinck, R. Rolland, etc.) with his rejection of the ordinary, with his open call for a better life (as opposed to romantic denial). In this dispute with tradition, he simply needs a hero from among young people who have not yet been processed by the surrounding vulgarity, a hero who is able to say his own word, not imposed from the outside. This is his Joan of Arc.

That's probably why “Lark” is an infrequent event on the theater stage of leading theaters. This can be explained by various reasons, but the main ones will be: a protest against tradition in all its manifestations, a very serious philosophical subtext that challenges acting and directing skills, a specific drawing of the role of Jeanne. It is all the more interesting to note the fact that recently a whole series of new theatrical productions have appeared. So, in 2001, the Youth Theater on Fontanka staged its own variation of the play, in 2010 it announced the mystery “The Lark” based on the play by Zh. Anuya Moscow Theater of the Moon, in 2012 on the New stage of the Moscow Art Theater named after A. P. Chekhov staged the graduation performance of Evgenia Berkovich (course of Kirill Serebrennikov), in 2015 In the Nizhny Novgorod Theater School named after E. A. Evstigneev, a play was staged by 4th-year students of the drama department.

It is striking that the productions are carried out in a youth environment, by students or young actors. This is probably the peculiarity of this play by J. Anuya. There are many characters from the youth environment in his works, but usually these heroes of his either die fighting the environment, or give in to this environment, refusing to fight it. It's not like that in the “Lark”.

Anuyev's play about Joan of Arc is, in essence, an attempt by the writer himself to give an answer to the question whether a person has a chance to live his life not in vain, not to succumb to the great forces of circumstances, not to become like everyone else when the environment gets to you. The heroes of his early plays (“Savage”, “Antigone”, etc.) only dream of real life. They do not agree with the philistine environment, but they can offer almost nothing: either to die in a collision with this environment, or to oppose them with the utopian ideal of family happiness, or even just go against the surrounding morality simply because it is the morality of the majority (Medea). Jean Anouy, generally sympathizing with such rebel heroes, is still forced, following the truth of life, to note the strengths of the character in the characters opposing them. His Heroes are opposed by “people of life”, who are sometimes even more interesting than their opponents (Creon, Columba). And only Joan of Arc is an exceptionally positive image, an image that calls to the ideal, showing the enormous potential of any human personality.

In Anuya's plays, the characters often dream of a family idyll. Jeanne is fundamentally deprived of any connection with her family. If in a real story, her brothers will be present on the battlefields with Jeanne, then in the play she is an outcast, whom no one in her family understands. Her brother teases her, her parents are outraged by her decision to join the army. Anuy removes from the text any hints of a love affair, which is so actively used, for example, in the works of Voltaire and Mark Twain. She's single on principle. She has no one to rely on, because what she is about to do is her own choice, behind which nothing and no one stands. And this choice will not even be heroic, but rather natural. It is significant in this regard that when asked who will play the voices, Jeanne answers that she herself. So Anuj translates the problem of the first-line of his heroine's actions into the plane of her own ethical choice.

All of Jeanne's actions are not the intricacies, not the delights of an intelligent and talented person, they are natural. Jeanne just doesn't understand how to do it any other way.

Anuj, without departing from the historical truth, creates his own artistic version of the events taking place. To do this, he scales everything that happens. His characters live outside of time and space, they are endowed with some kind of supernatural gift to know everything about the present and the future. So, Warwick tells about the monument that will be erected in honor of Joan of Arc in the future. Jeanne herself refuses the supposed and proposed family philistine happiness, realizing that then her image will not remain what she managed to mold out of it with her actions.

Those of the heroes who fail to realize their place in this life immediately come to the aid of Jeanne, who finds in each of his strengths, opens everyone's eyes on his positive principles. Jeanne is the engine of the plot. She is unique, she is all-seeing, she knows everything and understands everything. She is natural to her last gesture and movement. She is simply not able to lie, adapt, stand aside when something ordinary and therefore terrible happens. And most importantly, she believes in herself and her inevitability in what is happening. It is not for nothing that when asked which of the actors will play the voices, Jeanne gives the only possible answer for her: she and only she should do it. Voices are her choice, it's not an outside force pushing her to act, it's a conscious position coming from the deep foundations of her character.

But here lies the paradox: Jeanne's individualism can be interpreted as egocentrism. Maybe the heroine is mistaken, maybe her self-confidence will lead not to the ideal, but to the tragedy of the individual or her environment.

Anuj's task was to remove this contradiction. Within the framework of the concept of a free personality, a person who builds his own future, everything is fine. But this does not add credibility to the image. Jeanne must draw from somewhere that margin of safety that will allow her to be a national symbol, and not just a brilliant personality changing history.

And then Anuj makes an incredible turn. He returns to the tradition of ancient Greek theater. The choir, which has been forgotten for centuries, which performed the function of an ideal spectator in the ancient theater and which was constantly present on the stage, has been brought back on stage and is an active actor. The chorus here is like the whole of humanity, the people of France, the common people of the crowd from which the Orleans virgins are born. The chorus pushes a character out of itself, which then just as naturally hides in a crowd of actors, extras, people who have already fulfilled their small or large role in history. And Jeanne is also part of this choir. She does not control it, but simply knows the main melody much better than others.

Jeanne is both a hero and not. First of all, she is ordinary. There is nothing outstanding about it. Its description begins with the author's remark about how it should look. A leotard is not a costume at all for a girl, not for a heroine: Jeanne is, as it were, sexless. "Jeanne from the beginning to the end of the play - in a man's dress, reminiscent of a gymnast's attire" ^{[1, p. 138]}.

Theoretically, a male character could also play her.

However, all other characters are also conditional. The deliberate disregard for costumes is expressed in the fact that in the play these costumes are presented very, very conditionally. "The costumes only give a hint of the Middle Ages, but no frills either in color or in cut;" ^{[1, p. 138]}.

Jeanne is the director of her life herself, as any of the chorus-crowd on stage can become. But everyone else needs a push. Everyone else is tied to their life niche and they have no desire to go beyond it. Baudricourt is guarding his city, Warwick is fighting against the French, the king is playing in bilbok, the king's mistress and wife are composing an ingenious plan to financially destabilize the British army by buying incredibly expensive hats. Life is surprisingly diverse, but it's more an imitation of life than a real reality. People adapt because they have no purpose, and therefore they lack integrity. Jeanne is not even opposed to them, she just shows by her example this harmonious fullness of a whole person who is not distracted by trifles, no matter how attractive they are.

The secret of her success in her chosen mission is that she gives every person she meets a high purpose of life. Not everyone will be able to follow her program to the end, but everyone will believe in their capabilities, which are not really invented by Jeanne, but which have already been laid down in the potential of each of them. But it is Jeanne who activates their actions, gives them meaning, turns ordinary people into heroes of history.

Anuy chooses from the life of Jeanne d'Ark the most textbook episodes: voices, meeting with Baudricourt, a trip to the king, the siege of Orleans, trial and execution. All this has already been in a poem by Voltaire or, for example, in a novel by Mark Twain. But, as they say, nuances are important. In Voltaire, Jeanne is the heroine of a comic narrative, and in Twain, her image is shown through the eyes of a young page in love with her. It is not necessary to talk about objectivity in either the first or the second case. The dramatic version of the story removes the author's position and subjective narration from a certain person. Before us is the very tread of history.

But Anuy is also original here. The inexorability of history, its inevitability, is easily violated by the fact that Anuy destroys the usual historical chronotope. He just rearranges some episodes of Jeanne's life. Everything is in place, but a slightly different order. Not only that, the play is a continuous retrospective of the heroine's life, which is described as an already historical fact. And these facts are correlated with the knowledge of the audience, but at the end there is another small chronological shift: one of the characters remembers that they forgot to play the coronation scene, in which it is Jeanne who plays the leading role. And the tragic end turns unexpectedly into a triumph. The finale of the play is paradoxical: without departing from the historical truth, Anuj created an optimistic ending in the play by simply rearranging time intervals. And people will retell this story to each other, because, according to the playwright: "The real end of Jeanne's story is a happy one. Joan of Arc is a story that ends well!" [1:239].

Thus, the French playwright Jean Anouy creates an original interpretation of the image of Joan of Arc. The masterful use of new and traditional techniques of theatrical technique makes it possible to remove contradictions in the image of the main character. Anuj masterfully transforms a real historical person, albeit mythologized, into a human abstraction, giving the viewer the opportunity to believe in the greatness of any person who has lived and is living.

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