The nuns of St Ursula's Convent, led by the Prioress, Sister Jeanne, accused Urbain Grandier, Vicar of Loudon, of sorcery. He was tried, tortured and burned. On this baldly terrible foundation, Whiting has built a powerful, complex play, interweaving the personal dilemmas of Jeanne and Grandier with the political necessities of the time. Although it is set between 1623-34, essentially it is no more a period play than Miller's The Crucible.