Emma Wippermann, Joan of Arkansas

 

                HERE BEGIN THE
         PROCEEDINGS AGAINST A
             DEAD WOMAN JEANNE

It has pleased divine Providence
that                  the woman known as Jeanne

should be taken                        apprehended
by famous warriors

The reputation of this woman
has already gone forth

and having thrown off
the bonds                                 of shame

she wore
with an astonishing      and monstrous
                                    brazenness
immodest garments
belonging to the male sex;        moreover

she was not afraid to perform  speak   and
disseminate
many things     she is

guilty               of no inconsiderable offense

Lately I’ve been going through New York writer Emma Wippermann’s Joan of Arkansas (Brooklyn NY: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2023), a book the author self-describes on their website as “a queer drama about climate catastrophe, internet fame, and political divinity.” The title alone is one of the more impressive and striking I’ve encountered in some time, as the author reworks a contemporary reimagining of the facts and fictions of Joan of Arc and George Bernard Shaw’s 1923 play Saint Joan. I wonder, also, if the author is aware of the television series Joan of Arcadia (2003-2005)? Structured in four sections—“The Legend of Petit Jean,” “Joan of Arkansas,” “Trial of Jeanne D’Arc: Some Excerpts” and “The Dove”—Wippermann reimagines the space and time of Joan of Arc across a play script, prose and short lyrics, offering notes such as “PLACE: Domremy, Arkansas / in the increasing Heat / of the U.S.A.” and “TIME: The future, now— / or, Election Season / —but with the Medieval logic / of the Hundred Years’ War [.]” Immediately following, Wippermann’s “A NOTE ON STYLE” reads:

If performing, do it with a lot of speed; the spaces and line breaks are emphasis; talk as fast as you can read. No one waits for anybody to finish speaking. Imagine a fifteenth-century brain on amphetamines will full knowledge that the earth is burning.

Wippermann’s text is sharp, smart, fast moving and urgent, cycling across elements of climate crisis and the crisis of faith itself, through this blend of contemporary and fifteenth-century France, an updated chronicle play on Saint Joan that is chillingly relevant to increased climate shifts. There is an element of this particular work that feels akin to Wippermann blending Saint Joan with Don’t Look Up (2021), offering an urgency and religious fervor that fights against a self-destruction that might almost be inevitable.

I woke one morning with a sore throat. Smoke from the mountains had flooded down into the valley. The other side of the river was shrouded and Domremy felt shrunken, diminished by its sudden lack of context. School was cancelled and I stayed in bed.

This feels like the end of the world, I texted Joan.

Except everyone will go back to school in a couple days and act like nothing happened.

As if the world wasn’t literally on fire.