Judas Iscariot review by Shelley Blake
Review from Arts Hub, written by Shelley Blake:
One of history’s most famous apparent betrayals has been brought to the Melbourne stage in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s 1995 production The last days of Judas Iscariot – and it seems quite fitting that a company called Human Sacrifice Theatre would be the ones to bring it home. After all it is a tale about sacrifice and redemption, isn’t it?
The production, now playing at Fortyfive downstairs, is cleverly crafted and set in the court room of “down town” purgatory. The case, God and the kingdom of heaven and earth vs Judas Iscariot, opens with a grasping monologue from Judas’s mother, Henrietta Iscariot (Gail Beker) and as the audience seems settled in their juror’s chairs, the drama begins.
A dialogue driven performance allows the cast to jump back and forth between stories, anecdotes and tales of their time and relationship with the one and only Judas Iscariot. At times, the character’s lack deliverance in their monologues and the persecution sits a little too softly on the surface.