Are you kidding?   Killing a play because of the set design?  This play could have been performed on an empty stage---it is the narrator who evokes the feel of the period and the actors who bring it to life.  It's one thing if you noted the stage as a minor distraction (as the Star did in its review which is far more positive yet notes the issues preventing the play from perfection) but to say that the stage destroys the effectiveness of the play is absurd.   Then again, you stated in your "Saint Joan" review (the best play I have seen in 20 years at Shaw), that the integral scene in which the varying representatives of the established order decide that "We must burn the woman" is "as dull as dishwater."  Let's just say that we don't see eye to eye in our view of dramatic theater.