PLAY

Saint Joan (Access, 380 Broadway, reopening Apr. 24-May 13). George Bernard Shaw’s history play about Joan of Arc runs for three and a half hours and calls for a pageant-sized cast of twenty-four. How to make it doable in a tiny off-off-Broadway theater? By reconfiguring the script for a woman and three men who switch from part to part à la The 39 Steps. It may sound gimmicky, but Eric Tucker’s vest-pocket staging, mounted in a house so small that one scene is played in the lobby, fuses Shakespearean speed with Brechtian directness. It’s the most exciting Shaw revival I’ve ever seen (TT).