The Last Days Of Judas Iscariot

It's a completely obscene, indecent, dirty, smutty, rude, improper, coarse, bawdy, vulgar, lewd, raw, off-color, ribald, risqué, explicit, blue play.

Oh ... and it's utterly sacrilegious, blasphemous, profane, and heretical, as well.

I think that about covers it.

It's also one of the most sublime works I've read about the religious experience and "Coming to God". It certainly makes for a tricky balance: the audience that can tolerate this raunchy story of a rodeo clown and his overweight paramour is likely resistant to the message, and the audience that would appreciate a sincere story about the redemptive power of belief would surely never make it past the first description of .... well, they wouldn't make it very far. They wouldn't make it past the opening monologue, in fact.

I posted these words a few months ago about Riding The Bull, but they apply almost equally as well to The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis. Is there some sort of SoHo Great Awakening going on that no one told me about? In a mixture of comedy and beauty and hip-hop and history, this play tells the story of a trial for Judas' soul. The video above may give you some taste of the style of the piece, but it's the content that blew me away.

Just because I don't accept the divinity of Jesus, doesn't mean I don't find it a fascinating and powerful story. The Passion shouldn't be restricted to faith any more than King Lear should be restricted to British people.It's one of the truly great stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. And central in that story is the problem of Judas Iscariot, the problem of his betrayal and his damnation. I chew on it endlessly, like a dog with a theological bone. Why is Judas damned for all time? Why would "it had been good for that man if he had not been born"? Isn't he just playing his part in the original Passion Play? How else was it supposed to go down?

I don't want to spoil the ending, because for me it was a complete surprise. But there is a climactic, wonderful scene that does answer those questions in a theologically sound way. James Martin, a Jesuit priest, describes his experiences working with the original production as a "theological adviser" in A Jesuit Off-Broadway, and it's something I have at the top of my reading list. When I was a young man thinking seriously about joining Father Martin's order, I wonder how this play and it's view of Hell might have changed my life ...

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When I say Somebody Do This Play, I am fully aware that "somebody" probably can't be a company in Salt Lake. Not only is an 11-actor show that requires an urban, multicultural cast a tall order, but trying to walk that fine religious line is more difficult here than many other places. A point of view that lies between "Conservative Faith" and "Religion Is A Fraud" is a bloody small market here in the Beehive State.