The Last Days of Judas Iscariot - Hub Theatre Company
Photo Credit: Tim Gurczak
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot – Hub Theatre Company
Review by James Wilkinson
This piece also ran on Edge Media Network
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is presented by Hub Theatre Company. Written by Stephen Adly Guirgis. Directed by Steven Bogart. Assistant Director: Alex Roy.Set Designer: Justin Lahue. Lighting Design: Chris Bocchiaro. Assistant Lighting Designer: Amanda Hackney. Sound Designer: Lee Schuna. Costume Designer: Chelsea Kerl. Props Designer: Cesara Walters. Fight Choreographer: Matthew Dray. Dialect Coach: Charles Linshaw.
Much of the power that Hub Theatre’s production of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot draws on comes from the building it’s using as a temporary performance space. You enter First Church in Boston like a…well, like a church. Hub Theatre changes things up from their normal practices, utilizing one of the larger venues at First Church rather than the smaller side theater. It makes sense for them to pull out the stops for a show that tries to untangle the sticky thematic knots guilt, morality, shame, free will and judgement. You can feel the oppression building around you while entering. An eerie sidelight glow allows you to take your seat, but much of the cavernous room is kept in shadow and darkness. There’s one genuine moment of religious awe in the production that happens during the opening moment. A collection of actors has gathered on the stage/alter, staring out into the audience. Behind them a flood of colored light begins to roll its way up the church’s back wall, stretching high into the heavens, higher than you even thought the room went. For a moment you’re stunned into silence, overwhelmed by the sight (the lighting design is by Chris Bocchiaro with Amanda Hackney as the assistant designer and they earn every cent of that paycheck). In the final moments of the show, the production will once again reach for a moment of awe created by roving lights shining out through the darkness. Taken as an image, that final moment is just as beautiful, but it’s not going to hit us with the same emotional impact. By that point in the evening, too much good faith has been spent.
For years I had heard the title The Last Days of Judas Iscariot mentioned as a favorite from fellow theater friends but never got around to reading it myself. The play by Stephen Adly Guirgis has a great hook: Judas Iscariot, (the one of New Testament fame), is put on trial for his betrayal of Jesus Christ. Currently, Judas is sitting in a catatonic state somewhere in purgatory. He’s seems uninterested in changing his fate in any way, but a few religious figures have taken pity on him and arranged to have his case retried in the courtroom of the afterlife. He has a chance for forgiveness and to make it to heaven if his lawyer Fabiana Aziza Cunningham (Lauren Elias) can convince a jury of fellow purgatory residents that he’s worthy of mercy. Through a barrage of witnesses that include key figures from Judas’ family, twentieth century history and the Bible we learn about the story around the man called Judas Iscariot and his precarious place in history as the battle for his soul is waged.
I got a little nervous when the play began with a monologue from Judas’ mother. Liz Adams plays the mother and she sells the monologue well, but it seemed to signify that we were in for an evening of heavy-handed seriousness. Relief came quickly enough in the next scene when we meet more of our cast of characters and Guirgis’ sense of humor has a chance to rush in. The play is overflowing with known figures, but they’re not glacial icons. Guirgis writes them as the people you might meet on the street. They’re approachable and charming as hell. Hub Theatre manages to assemble a team of actors that’s equally charming who win you over as soon as they step onstage. Clearly they’re having a grand old time. For a while, the play is able to coast on that charm, drawing plenty of laughs from the audience. But as the first act begins to wrap up that feeling creeps in that while you’ve watched a lot of stuff happen, it’s not building towards anything. We’re spinning our wheels in the thematic mud in a way that makes you want to stand up and ask, “Okay, but where are we going with this?”
I think part of the problem is the repetitive structure of the trial itself. We watch one character after another brought to the witness stand to be interrogated by the lawyers (occasionally this gets interrupted by monologues from the apostles). To be sure, there’s some amusement to be had in seeing Mother Teresa and Sigmund Freud (both played with a sense of fun by Arthur Waldstein) brought out for this purpose, but it also seems like they’re all being used to hammer home the same point. Namely that we all have both good and bad in us and people are complicated. Okay, fine. I’ll go along with that but I don’t need to hear it over and over. It also doesn’t help that the character of Judas (played by actor Cristian Mancinas-Garcia) spends much of the play frustratingly inert. He sits on a raised platform, away from the action, under the olive branch he hung himself on and saying nothing. He dutifully watches the trial but doesn’t get involved. We never get a proper look inside his head that might allow us to identify with him and become invested in the outcome of the trial until the play enters the home stretch. I suspect that the play is falling into the trap of treating Judas Iscariot as a symbol for all of humankind. He’s not supposed to be his own character. He’s you or me or any other member of the human race that struggles with the forces of the cosmos. He’s Man with a capital “M.” Taking this approach and “universalizing” his story might sound like a grand idea but it comes at the expense of a personal connection.
In fact, the issue with Judas is one that could be applied to many of the characters in the show. The play relies heavily on our foreknowledge of its biblical figures and doesn’t spend much time filling them in as flesh and blood people. The result is not people we connect with so much as the gimmick of watching the characters from Bible class talking like the people you pass on the street. Those who we don’t have that prior relationship with fare much worse. Why is it so necessary for Fabiana to defend Judas? We’re given a few details of her backstory but not much insight into what motivates her.
Director Steven Bogart gives the play a serviceable staging that makes great use of the space and manages to wring as much comedy out of it as he can. Ultimately, he’s fighting a losing battle because (and I realize this may sound petty, but that doesn’t make it any less true) the play is just too damn long. The performance I watched ran over three hours and with the cyclical nature of the narrative, it doesn’t read as someone exploring themes as much as a playwright stubbornly refusing to kill his darlings. It wears on you. Towards the end of the evening Dan Prior as jury member Butch Honeywell has a beautiful monologue recounting his guilt over cheating on his wife when he was alive. Prior plays it like a champ and the piece could have been its own play. But given its place in the larger narrative, the monologue isn’t giving us anything new and basically boils down to a message we’ve been hearing all night: nobody’s perfect. So rather than being invested in what he’s saying, I’m left wondering how much longer it’s going to go on (a thought that, I suspect, was shared by the gentleman across the aisle from me who kept checking the time on his cell phone in the play’s final stretch).
There’s a lot of polish on Hub Theatre’s production. It looks great and is played as well as can be (better in some cases). But the gears aren’t in place for the machine to work properly and despite a good running start, the grace it aims for remains just outside of its grasp.
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is presented by Hub Theatre Company at First Church in Boston November 8-23, 2019.
For tickets and more information, visit their website: www.hubtheatreboston.org
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