Poor Clare – Orange Tree Theatre

The Clare in this story starts off far from poor. She was born into a noble and wealthy family in Assisi in 1194. Religiously pious, at the age of 18 she heard a young man preach and thereafter determined to forego her worldly possessions and devote herself to a life of poverty and God.  The young man was Francis, who became the renowned Saint Francis now associated with a simple life, and love of animals and nature.  In this dramatisation playwright Chiara Atik chooses to put the issue of wealth distribution at the centre of the play, and also Clare’s decision to renounce her former privileged life.  She also made the decision to use contemporary vernacular language and forms of speech. So, while the costumes and stage furniture and props were, with a few exceptions, authentic to the period, the characters spoke to each other in very modern English idiom. While this allowed for a very substantial amount of humour it was an uncomfortable juxtaposition which I felt reduced the impact of the story.

His father being a prosperous silk merchant, Francis is also motivated to forego his privileged lifestyle. He is disgusted with the social and economic system of the time which creates enormous inequalities of wealth, but he appears to have no alternative economic system in mind, and his only solution is to remove himself completely from normal society and adopt the lifestyle of a monk. Much of the play thus revolves around the life of the privileged women of the household and their servants, with Clare challenging the women to look at their privileged lifestyle in comparison with the poverty around them. There was one lovely ironic scene where the three ladies dressed in their finery sat having their feet washed by their servants whilst debating whether they really were rich!

The play was set on a largely bare stage in the Orange Tree’s lovely small theatre-in-the-round, with the cast bringing in the various items of stage furniture and props as required. Unfortunately, the large number of short scenes made for frequent interruptions in the action. The costumes, particularly the elite ladies’ dresses, were lovely, and appropriate to the period, and they changed them frequently as the rich would have done. There was, however, one major anomaly in a scene where Clare is visiting the poor, represented by George Ormerod, when plastic sheeting was brought on in a shopping trolley, and Ormerod was dressed in very shabby modern clothing, with a contemporary woven hat and beaten-up trainers. Perhaps the director and costume designer were trying to make the parallels with the plight of the poor in our own time explicit?

The acting was strong overall. Arsema Thomas played the role of Clare as a very modern young lady, although I did find that her diction left me missing some of the punchlines. Freddie Carter played a very relaxed, likeable Francis quite certain of his own beliefs, although horrified when Clare revealed that she wanted to become his disciple, a level of responsibility for which he was unprepared in his adopted lifestyle. The other two ladies of the household were played convincingly by Hermione Gulliford as the mother who tried hard but rather unconvincingly to understand her daughter’s problems with their lifestyle, while Clare’s bubbly sister Beatrice (Anashka Chakravarti) made no secret of her total repulsion at the idea of giving up even a portion of their wealth and privilege.

The play runs for 100 minutes without an interval.  It was engaging throughout, and the parallels between the inequalities of the time and the present will not be lost on any members of the audience. As a piece of political theatre, however, it lacked an alternative narrative to that put forward by Francis and Clare.

Poor Clare runs at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond until 9th August. Tickets are available from: https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/

Reviewer: Paul Ackroyd

Reviewed: 16th July 2025

North West End UK Rating: