The play premiered in Boston at the Plymouth Theater on October 28, 1955 and opened on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre on November 17, 1955, where it ran for 229 performances, closing on June 2, 1956.
[1] Starring Julie Harris as Joan and Boris Karloff as Pierre Cauchon, the cast included; Christopher Plummer as Warwick and Paul Roebling as the Dauphin.
The opening night cast remained throughout the entire run, with the sole exception of Christopher Plummer whose character Warwick was taken up by Leo Ciceri.
The cast included: Dorothy Tutin as Joan, Laurence Naismith as Cauchon, Richard Johnson as Warwick, and Donald Pleasence as the Dauphin.
"[6] Brooks Atkinson, in his New York Times review, described Christopher Frye’s adaptation as; "intellectual attitude" and Lillian Hellman’s, with "solid strength in the theatre."
"[7] John Chapman, writing in the New York Daily News noted that the play "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.
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.
[12] Cyrus Durgin in the Boston Globe wrote of the Broadway production: "It is done in a free and fluid style, hemmed in by neither the conventional limitations of time sequence nor literal settings.
"[13] Stephen Holden, in his 1989 New York Times review, "Enter the Martyred Maid, But Without 1950s Voices", writes: "When it opened on Broadway in 1955 with Julie Harris as Joan, the play bore obvious analogies to the Communist witch hunts of the era.
"[15] Christine Howey in Cleveland Scene writes: "Blending two adaptations of the original script by Christopher Fry and Lillian Hellman, director Greg Cesear attempts to capture a fresh perspective on the intersection of politics and morality…Joan's confounding qualities of insolent confidence and devout humility are portrayed convincingly by chisel-jawed Laura Borgione (even though this actor's adolescent years are disappearing rapidly in the rearview mirror).
"[16] At the Statford Festival in 2005, there was some thrilling to the "star turn" of Amanda Plummer and the historical link with her father Christopher to the play, rather than the age of the "mercurial" 48 year old actress.
He writes: "Anouilh knew that France had no Joan of Arc to defend its lands in World War II and, worse, had a government that collaborated with the Nazis."