The announcement that young Scottish actress Mandipa Kabana will portray Joan of Arc in an upcoming Scottish theatrical production has been accompanied by the now-familiar language of contemporary cultural justification. This production, we are told, will explore the "power of youth-led change." One can scarcely object to that theme. Joan herself embodied precisely such power: an illiterate peasant girl who altered the trajectory of European history, lifted the siege of Orléans, and forced the coronation of Charles VII.

But there is a deeper issue here—one that modern theatre increasingly prefers to ignore.

Joan of Arc was not merely a symbol. She was a real person. She lived in a particular place, at a particular time, among a particular people. She was a French peasant of the early fifteenth century, from Domrémy, a village whose inhabitants shared a common ethnic, cultural, and genetic inheritance. Her identity was not an interchangeable theatrical accessory. It was part of the historical reality that gave her story meaning.

Yet modern theatrical culture increasingly treats historical figures not as realities to be represented faithfully, but as mannequins upon which contemporary ideological garments may be draped.

This represents a subtle but significant shift in the purpose of historical drama. Traditionally, historical theatre aimed at reconstruction: an attempt, however imperfect, to bring the past into the present. The audience was invited to encounter history—not as abstraction, but as reality. Costumes, accents, physical appearance, and setting were all marshalled toward a single goal: fidelity.

Today, fidelity is often dismissed as naïve.

We are told instead that "representation" is more important than accuracy. That symbolism supersedes fact. That the actor's personal identity may be more important than the historical person being portrayed.

This inversion raises an obvious question. If historical accuracy no longer matters, then what exactly distinguishes historical drama from fiction?

To see the problem clearly, one need only reverse the roles. Suppose a theatre company announced that Malcolm X — whose life and identity were inseparable from his experience as a Black American — would be portrayed by an ethnically Scandinavian actor. Would audiences be told that this casting choice "explores universal themes"? Would objections be dismissed as narrow-minded fixation on physical characteristics? Of course not.

There would be immediate recognition that Malcolm X's identity was not incidental. It was essential. His authority, his voice, and his historical role emerged from his lived reality. To alter that reality would not be artistic liberation; it would be historical erasure.

The principle, therefore, is not controversial. It is already widely understood. The controversy arises only from its selective application. The inconsistency reveals that the issue is not artistic freedom, but cultural fashion.

For centuries, theatre has operated on an implicit contract with its audience: that when presenting historical figures, it would make a good-faith effort to represent them truthfully. This was never perfect. Practical constraints intervened. Actors played roles outside their precise demographic profile. But the direction of effort was always toward accuracy, not away from it.

What is new is the deliberate abandonment of that effort.

The justification offered—that historical figures represent "universal human experiences"— is, ironically, both true and irrelevant. Joan's courage, conviction, and faith are indeed universal. But universality does not negate particularity. It is precisely because she was a specific person—a teenage French girl in a medieval agrarian society — that her achievements resonate so powerfully. Remove the specificity, and the universality weakens rather than strengthens.

History derives its power from its concreteness.

There is also an undercurrent of condescension in such casting choices. They imply that contemporary audiences are incapable of identifying with historical figures unless those figures are made to resemble them physically. This assumption betrays a diminished view of human imagination.

For generations, audiences have had no difficulty identifying with figures vastly different from themselves: ancient Romans, medieval kings, Japanese samurai, Russian peasants. The human capacity for imaginative empathy does not depend on superficial resemblance.

Indeed, it depends precisely on difference.

The deeper irony is that theatre, in attempting to make history more "relevant," risks making it less believable. When the audience is constantly reminded of the present — through anachronistic casting, language, or themes—the illusion of historical reality dissolves. The past ceases to be encountered as an independent reality and becomes merely a mirror of contemporary concerns.

At that point, history is no longer being represented. It is being appropriated.

None of this diminishes the talent of Mandipa Kabana, who may well deliver a compelling performance. Acting is the art of inhabiting other lives. That is its essence. But talent alone does not resolve the philosophical question at stake.

The question is not whether she can act. The question is whether theatre still believes in history.

For if historical figures are infinitely malleable — if their physical reality can be altered at will to serve contemporary narratives — then history itself becomes infinitely malleable. It ceases to constrain us. It ceases to instruct us. It becomes merely raw material for present-day storytelling.

This reflects a broader cultural trend: the gradual replacement of historical consciousness with presentism. The past is no longer encountered on its own terms. It is reshaped to conform to present values, present sensibilities, and present ideologies.

But the past is not ours to redesign.

Joan of Arc does not belong to the twenty-first century. She belongs to fifteenth-century France. Her story has endured for six hundred years precisely because it was real—because it emerged from the stubborn, irreducible facts of history.

To insist upon those facts is not narrow-mindedness. It is respect. Respect for Joan herself. Respect for history. And ultimately, respect for reality.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/25835196.scottish-joan-arc-play-explores-power-youth-led-change/