Heaven and Hell
April 21, 2008 by estherbintliff
On Saturday I saw ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot‘ at the Almeida. The lights went down to reveal a stage littered with broken grey slate tiles; like a room half-built, with a single chair in the centre and a couple of scruffy desks at each side. This was purgatory, otherwise known as ‘Hope’, and we were about to watch a lawyer plead for her client - Judas Iscariot - to be lifted out of eternal damnation and allowed into heaven.
Ruled over by an irascible judge who is himself waiting with ever-decreasing hope for a ticket to the pearly gates, the court calls a number of bizarre witnesses, including, at one point, Satan, who rises dramatically out of the floor in a white suit and open-necked black silk shirt.
Written by Stephen Adly Guirgis, (the New York-based actor/writer who also created the runaway hit ‘Jesus Hopped the A-Train‘) ‘The Last Days…’ is a loud, angry, intelligent howl at the contradictions inherent in much established church theology, but also simply a brilliant and bracing piece of theatre.
The play examines whether God’s mercy can be truly universal and still allow for a place called hell, taking the example of Jesus’ most infamous betrayer to grapple with the very foundations of Christian belief. It is in no way a straightforward condemnation of faith, nor its unquestioning advocate.
Rather it collects a huge diversity of philosophical thought, argument and common sense and throws them onto the stage in quick-fire, non-stop, hip-hopped dialogue, packaging its theological debate into utterly compelling drama. The language is laden with the coarsest of swear-words; the mental violence imposed on the play’s namesake by his own conscience is at times almost unwatchable (Joseph Mawle as Judas deserves a medal); yet the humour and sharp profundity of Guirgis’ script made the play one of the most engaging experiences I’ve had in the theatre for a long time.
Michael Billington called the production “gloriously intoxicating” in The Guardian, while the Telegraph’s Charles Spencer said it makes “most contemporary plays seem safe, timid and dull“. For me, it was a treat to see questions of heaven and earth thrown around so intelligently on the popular stage; to be at once challenged and entertained; and to watch Mother Teresa, Freud, St Monica and Satan argue about the nature of God, and our tragic willingness to embrace guilt over the terrifying derangement of redemption.
