Last Days of Judas Iscariot, The
Written by Stephen Adly GuirgisDirected by Philip Seymour Hoffman
Playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis made his Public Theater debut with this production.
Somewhere between Heaven and Hell in a neighborhood of purgatory called Hope, agnostic lawyer Fabiana Aziza Cunningham has brought before the court the perpetrator of the biggest betrayal in human history- Judas Iscariot. Actually, she has brought his case before the court while the man himself sits catatonic in a dark cell where he has wasted away for centuries> Fabiana is hoping to solve the question of why a truly merciful God would condemn Judas. In a court presided over by a curmudgeonly Civil War suicide, Fabiana and her opposing prosecutor Yusef El-Fayoumy call on a cavalcade of witnesses from Sigmund Freud to Judas’ mother to Satan. The characters wrestle with questions of theology, personal faith and free will, but ultimately there are no easy answers in this darkly comic look at one of the Bible’s most controversial characters.
This production received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for Outstanding Sound Design.
source: nytimes.com