The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

Synopsis

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a time-bending, serio-comic drama in an imagined world between Heaven and Hell that re-examines the plight and fate of The New Testament’s most infamous sinner. Throughout the play figures ranging from Pontius Pilate to Sigmund Freud are called to testify in a trial of 'God and the Kingdom of Heaven and Earth versus Judas Iscariot.' Guirgis’ distinct and utterly contemporary voice uses the violent, chaotic energy of modern America, and particularly of New York, to explore timeless questions of free will and responsibility, of faith and fate.

Our Review:

4 April 2008

The strongest dramatic element in Jesus Christ Superstar was the symbiotic relationship between Jesus and Judas, and that story is at the centre of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, a powerful, challenging and thrillingly theatrical American play by Stephen Adly Guirgis, directed at the Almeida Theatre by Rupert Goold in a co-production with Goold’s own Headlong Theatre.

In its mix of theological fervour, street-level demotic language, noisy gesture and intimations of sublimity, the show comes across as a companion piece to a pair of striking recent Headlong projects: Goold’s gloriously ambitious staging of Milton’s Paradise Lost and Daniel Kramer’s revival of Angels in America. The scene is a contemporary, purgatorial New York, where an appeal is launched against Judas’s reputation as a traitor.

The witnesses include Mary Magdalene (Poppy Miller), a cringing, walnut-featured Mother Theresa (Dona Croll), Sigmund Freud ([Josh Co...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

Gareth James - 7 May 2008:

This is a very original and challenging play which creates a modern trial with both period witnesses such as Mary Magdalene and later ‘expert’ witnesses such as Sigmund Freud. It’s a thrilling production with some terrific performances. The arguments are well made and the contemporary setting and dialogue make them more accessible, but it loses some of its punch by elongating some scenes to the point where the play outstays its welcome by 30 minutes or so. You might expect the subject matter to result in something earnest, but the dialogue sparkles and it is often very funny. If only they’d pruned it a bit….....

Read more and add your own review

Related Whatsonstage.com Articles

Review Round-up: Goold Redeems Judas Iscariot More»