Director settles down to helm ‘Saint Joan’ at RISE
Beacon grad stars in city production
WOONSOCKET – Christian O’Neill was living in Brooklyn, N.Y., when he signed up to direct “Saint Joan” for Rhode Island Stage Ensemble (RISE), a city-based community theater group.
That’s a long commute, but O’Neill, a Rhode Island native, was used to it; he says he’d been “bouncing back and forth” between New York, Boston and Rhode Island for work and education for years. Moreover, the play had long been at the top of his must-do list, and this also was an opportunity to work with the group he had helped found in 2006.
Now the auditions, rehearsals, the driving – and a move to a new home in Mansfield – come to fruition with RISE’s production “Saint Joan,” opening March 22 at the RISE Playhouse.
Written by George Bernard Shaw and premiering in 1923, three years after Joan of Arc’s canonization by the Roman Catholic Church, the play tells the story of the 15th century peasant girl who believed God had chosen her to lead the French from English domination. She was 17 when she led troops during the Hundred Years War, most famously at the siege of Orleans, and only 19 when, threatened by her success, those in power had her burned at the stake.
The play has been described as “a tragedy without villains,” because Shaw was interested in portraying “what men do at their best, with good intentions.”
O’Neill adds, “It’s also about the way society treats its visionaries. There is a spectrum of reactions, from ‘I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth,’ to ‘How can I use this person?’ and ‘I need to destroy this person.’”
He sees parallels to stories of Christ in the Gospels, and acknowledges that “spirituality and mysticism are in my wheelhouse.” That affinity was evident in his direction of “41,” a documentary about his brother, Nicholas O’Neill, who was the youngest victim of the Station nightclub fire, and a production of “They Walk Among Us,” a play Nicholas had written before his death.
O’Neill’s other work – like his commuting – has covered a lot of ground. Starting in 1999, he directed several shows for Encore Rep at the Stadium Theatre, including “Miracle on 34th Street.” He was helping organize RISE in 2006 when he was accepted into the master of fine arts program in directing at Brooklyn College and moved to New York.
He considered “Saint Joan” for his thesis project, but settled on another work before earning his degree in 2008. That was his second master’s; he previously had earned a master’s in theater education at Emerson College in Boston. He also has a master’s degree in social work and has a “day job” as a social worker with a Boston-based agency.
His theater employment includes a stint as a managing producer for Playwrights Horizons Theater School at New York University’s Tish School of Drama, and five years as drama instructor and stage director for Voices Boston, where he directed musicals and American premiers of three children’s operas.
But he and his wife, Leah, decid- ed it was time to leave the city, and with children Asher, 9, and Hazel, 3, relocated last September to Mansfield.
“We wanted to get back to our old theater communities, and I really wanted to do things with my son,” he says. In December, Asher was in “It’s a Wonderful Life” at RISE – “He loved it” – and during the February school vacation, he participated in theater camp at the Stadium Theatre. Leah works as a children’s librarian but shares O’Neill’s interest in theater, going back to appearances in the Cambridge Revels seasonal stage performances.
O’Neill revived his local connections to recruit the large cast of men needed for “Saint Joan,” and was excited about the number of “strong contenders” who auditioned for the title role, ultimately choosing 21-year-old Rain Jolicoeur of Woonsocket, a graduate of Beacon Charter High School for the Arts.
“This is a role she deeply connects to on a personal level,” he observes, and that carries through to her performance.
While the events in the play took place in the 15th century, don’t expect armor and chain mail. O’Neill and costume designers Galen Auer and Rose Linnell are dressing the cast in more contemporary military garb.
Do expect some multi-media touches, a signature of O’Neill’s work which actually has a precedent in Shaw’s 1923 stage directions. In an epilogue, Joan is visited by a figure from the future who tells her she will be canonized, and images of statues in her honor were projected via multi-media of the day: a slide projector.
Performances of “Saint Joan” take place March 22 to 31 at the RISE Playhouse, 142 Clinton St. Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 general admis- sion, $16 seniors, students, military, law enforcement and firefighters, and are available at the door or in advance at www.ristage.org.