"Judas Iscariot" opens with Judas' mother recounting his suicide and burial. Judas, unsurprisingly, had been abandoned by everyone. She alone dug his grave and covered him with earth. People insisted that he was in hell but at the close of her monologue she declares, with equal parts pathos and equal parts anger, that Judas is in heaven. If Judas were not in heaven, she says, then God is unjust. At the end of the monologue, we notice Judas, humped over and drooling, on a stump in the front corner of stage right. It's a wonderful moment, partly because it raises the question of Judas' culpability in God's plan for the death of Christ (and consequently our salvation) and because we see the physical manifestation of what must have been Judas' emotional state upon betraying Christ. Thus, in the first few minutes of the play, the scene is set for what I think is one of the most fascinating stories of all time.
Judas, it turns out, is in purgatory. His name is mud and he can't get a trial that might release him from purgatory to heaven, not because God forbids it but because the other inhabitants of the place refuse to hear his case. A feisty woman decides to act as his public defender and doesn't rest until she gets him a trail. As the trail proresses, we learn why each person present is in purgatory and we learn some historical and non-historical details about people surrounding the death of Christ. Chief among them are the high priest Ciaphas and Pontius Pilate. Her challenges offer us an opportunity to reconsider the story that we'd learned and accepted without giving it much thought. Ciaphas, she suggests, also betrayed Christ, who was a Jew after all, and thus one of Ciaphas' own people. She accuses him of being in bed with the Romans and profiting from the enslavement of the Jews. How is Ciaphas any better than Judas she wants to know. Ciahas' answer is that Judas took money. Not much of an answer. Ciaphas storms off and declares that what he feels for his part of the story is between him and God. Why then is what happened not between Judas and God? Pilate doesn't get off any easier. And neither does Mother Theresa who, the play suggests, said that abortion is the worst sin of al and is responsible for all wars. The point of these testimonies seems to be to point out that everyone, including our saints, are culpable but quite willing to throw the first stone. Why then has Judas gone down in history as the worst fiend?
As the received story of Judas goes, Jesus is sent to earth to die for our sins. Due to his sacrifice, we can now be forgiven for our sins and gain entry to the kingdom of God. At the bequest of the Jews, the Romans decide to kill Jesus. Ciaphas, the Jewish high priest, resents Jesus for his power and claims it is blasphemy. Judas, we've been taught to believe, betrays Jesus' whereabouts and identity to the Romans for payment and they string Jesus up and crucify him. Thus, Judas is the scummiest of the scums of the earth. Some theologians have argued, however, that Judas' betrayal was a sacrifice itself. Jesus was sent to earth to die and Judas did an important thing by betraying him. In fact, they suggested, Jesus willed it. In either case, this is a moving story to me because Judas and Jesus seem to be incredibly close friends and Jesus' betrayal is necessary. That it comes at the hands of one so close to him, whether mandated by Christ or brought about by Judas, is a complicated story of friendship. My image is of Christ both knowing that he is responsible for Judas' betrayal and saddened by that betrayal.
The play's suggestion is that Judas is Jesus' puppet -- that Jesus puts these plans into action and that Judas' betrayal is necessary. Those pieces of silver cannot repay Judas for what he's had to do for Christ's plan and he resents the payment. Maybe he doesn't throw them away because of remorse but out of the recognition that it's paltry payment considering the magnitude of the sacrifice. When Jesus comes to Judas looking for emotional succor, Judas is still angry and sends him away. While Judas sits on trial in front of mankind (and mankind who have been less than perfect and ended up in purgatory) Judas is actually judging God.
The play is fascinating to me for its exploration of good and evil and that relationship between Jesus and Judas. The production itself I'm a bit more mixed on. The acting is frequently but not always strong, the costumes are odd, and the set is flat. The cast is racially diverse and each person of color plays a caricature of his/her ethnicity. Pilate is black and a bit ghetto. Actually, he's like a ghetto guy who has made a lot of money. One of the characters is St. Augustine's mother. She's a Latina hoochie mama. While her characterization drove people around me crazy, I found her kind of funny. About St Augustine (who wa an alcoholic and slept with more prostitutes than he drank glasses of wine), she says, he gave up hooch and whores and went down the straight and narrow. Her manner is over the top and none of the women in heaven like her. They know, though, that she can get shit done. When she approaches Judas for the first time, she slaps the drooling invalid about and makes jokes about his suicide ("How's it hangin'?"). But then she comes close to him and touches him. Against her will, she senses the centuries of pain and she bursts into tears. She hugs him, tears falling down her face, and Judas seems to warm just a bit. Like so much of the play, the conventions are weak but it delivers when it needs to. In that moment, we feel and experience Judas' isolation. For all the silly stereotypes, bad jokes, and odd costume choices, we experience a deeply human moment. Those moments make the play more than worth seeing.
