It was a betrayal of biblical proportions, but what if there was a different side to infamous traitor Judas Iscariot that everyone was missing?
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis in 2005, questions the audience’s capacity for forgiveness, faith and humanity through the use of flashbacks to an imagined childhood — including testimonies from figures such as Mother Theresa, Satan and Sigmund Freud.
The play, currently running at USC’s Bing Theatre, is set in a courtroom in purgatory and tells the story of a court case determining the fate of Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ apostles. The USC School of Dramatic Arts opened the 10-show run Sept. 29.
Co-director of the performance, David Warshofsky, who is also Theater Practice and Director of the MFA acting program, said the play’s production was informed by some of the students’ personal relationships with Guirgis.
“He has come to rehearsals, he has come to see the show,” Warshofsky said. “He has sat down with every member of the company after he saw the show and sort of talked to them and congratulated them and gave them notes and talked about the play and talked about the dramaturgy.”
Morgan Whittam, theater design major and costume designer for the production, said her work helps create characters and add to the visual storytelling effect, adding to Warshofsky’s vision for the play.
“The costumes were essential to the production, because they help make the characters who they are and help the audience understand who the characters are,” she said. “My favorite thing we got to do in this show was we got to build a pair of wings for the actress who plays Gloria.”
Whittam said the play allows the audience to come to their own conclusions, depending on their personal experiences, since it focuses on “the gray area between the good and the bad, and how there is good within the worst of us and bad within the best of us.”
Warshofsky emphasized that one of the reasons why he loves theater and production is because the students “don’t run from controversy.” He envisions the audience having a wide range of reactions due to its “revolutionary” nature.
“[It] has the potential to be quite reactionary for sure,” he said.
Sarah Brewer, freshman theater major with an emphasis in acting, attended the play on Monday. She found the performance “really beautiful.”
“As someone who didn’t know the Bible well I could still understand the story. The characters were so well developed by the actors,” Brewer said.
General admission is $17, and tickets can be purchased online at the USC School of Dramatic Arts website, or at the door, depending on availability. The show runs through Oct. 8.