We are now less than a month away from opening Marat/Sade. The first thing to know about the play is that it’s full title isThe Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. Second thing to know is that it is even bigger and more historically and politically charged than our last show The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. Third thing to know is that Marat/Sade is a musical - with all original music!!!! Fourth thing is that you don’t need to know anything about the French Revolution to ‘get’ the play. But the fifth thing, is that learning a little more never hurt and on the blog over the next few weeks I’m going to try to give a little bit of background to the play. Michael will probably add a few postings about the process and theatricality and the actors are all being invited to share their thoughts as we get into production.

Just as I did for Judas here’s a little Marat/Sade mix-tape to start with:

Talking About A Revolution - I’m partial to a cover by Damien Rice
Revolution Rock - The Clash
Driving Myself Crazy - Looper
Revolution - The Beatles
Young and Insane - The Magnetic Fields
The Day After the Revolution - Pulp
Garcon Culotte - Les Sans Culotte
and of course La Marseillaise!

Thank you to Stephen Adly Guirgis for writing The Last Days of Judas Iscariot and giving us the chance to work on this play which is at once deeply personal and universally broad.

Thank you to our cast for making each and every performance passionate, moving, special and for opening up to each other both on stage every night and here on the blog.

Thank you to our director John Vreeke for your amazing work understanding and translating the musicality of the text onto the stage, for helping to provide the actors with the tools and confidence they needed. Thank you to the designers, company members and Forum board members for your hard work making the production complete.

And a huge thank you to our audience for helping to make The Last Days of Judas Iscariot the most successful production in Forum history. We appreciate your joining us and your reactions and excitement about the production helped to make this a hugely rewarding experience.

Photo Credit: Melissa Blackall Photography

Our final Notes from the Cast come from Veronica del Cerro who played Santa Monica, the sassy force of nature who really got our story rolling when she got on the phone to the Big Guy upstairs. Though Veronica had sent the piece in over a week ago, it got held up in the shuffle with all the box office madness that comes with sold out houses. But the timing actually couldn’t be better, as her words serve as a perfect reflection on one Hell of a journey…

“What is God?”
“Sit properly in you chair. If you want to break it, I’ll get you an ax. It will be easier.”
With my chair’s four legs safely on the ground, I repeated the question.
“What is God?”
“God. God is everything you see and everything you are.”
“So this chair is God?”
“Yes. The chair, the table, the food, and you.”
With not a clue as to what that meant I continued to eat my tongue. (Yes, I was made to eat cow tongue with cream sauce when I was 6).

Now, although I am a pescatarian and still do love to swing on chairs, I cherish my father’s words like gold (or silver?). They have become the root of my belief system and I am ever awed at how each day sheds new light on this fundamental idea. I was raised to question, but have found that I actually only have one truth; the answers are not mine to have.

The spirituality, for lack of a better and less popular term, that I have cultivated has been crafted out of experience and necessity. From listening to political and familial stories that have trickled down through the generations, exploring the variety of reading material my parents had available, from my own journeys into the depths of the underworld, and from my family’s love, I have gathered a notion of acceptance.

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot examines the reality of our existance through theatre by allowing these iconic characters to identify with audiences of today. I find that Saint Monica’s pride grows from seeing her underdog loved ones persevere and by holding them, or high-fiving them, while they continue to confront the prejudices that have exploded in their self-schemas. If one is willing to come clean with their own selves, then Saint Monica is willing to provide a tear, a prayer, and some hope.

We are reminded that Judas is one constant: the guilt, shame, and remorse for mixed identities, alcoholism, lust, love, for truth, confusion, poverty, difference, ignorance… Jesus is the other constant: our hope, our will to accept ourselves for who we are and might become. Whether we chose to remain in the purgatory of our own perception, or to be free by embracing uncertainty is the inner trial we all face. Ultimately, your reality is what you make it to be.

“Ms. Veronica, you are in stage-play again, aren’t you?” my 7 year old student asked me as the fractions worksheets were handed out.
“Yes, I am. That’s why I am looking a little tired today. Please get your pencil box.”
“Ms.Veronica, what is your new stage-play called?”
“The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. Now, put your name on your paper.”
“What’s it about?”

Since I was a little surprised and excited about his newfound interest in my theatrical adventures, I decided to answer as quickly and honestly as I could.
“It is about…ummm..a group of people who had a friend hurt their feelings. Now, they are trying to decide whether or not to forgive him.”
“Oh, so it’s a Feeling Play.”
“Well..uh..” As I began to give a more precise explanation, I saw that he had already moved on from the subject and was writing his initials on his sheet.

“Yes. If that is what it means to you, then that is exactly what it is.”

Photo Credit: Melissa Blackall Photography

Patrick is a company member here at Forum and is playing our Lord and Savior Himself, Jesus of Nazareth.

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I figured since it takes me about 2 1/2 hours to mosey out and join the cast onstage, I’d take a couple of weeks to make my entrance to these here cyber-procedings. Better late than never…

So please the court, my name is Patrick and I too am a Catho-hol-ic. Yes, like Guirgis himself and almost half the cast, I also hail from the mothership. I went to Catholic school, did all the sacraments, went to church every week, went to youth group meetings and summer camps building houses for the poor, and I worked in the parish rectory for a couple of years in High School before heading off to College, where all good Catholics go to fall away from the flock.

But despite my pious youth, there were always those pesky questions to wrestle. Questions which got me into trouble in grade school. Questions like: if God is all powerful and merciful and He gave me the capacity for sin and a mind to question his existence, then how could he burn me eternally for acting as He created me (or however I said it when I was 10)? Saint Thomas doubted and he was there. Now 2,000 years later, aren’t I allowed the same measure of doubt, if not more? A LOT more? And one other question: would god strike me down if I didn’t capitalize his name?

Owning my doubt and skepticism has been a huge part of deepening my faith—even though I rarely use the words “my faith”; it’s an ongoing challenge of reconciling what’s been passed down with what actually resonates deep down. Somewhere early on I heard that “faith is not faith unless it’s questioned,” which became my motto. And yet despite my beef with all the dogma, the core teachings of Christ have always been a guiding force: Love thy neighbor as thyself…Judge not lest ye be judged…Blessed are the peacemakers. Those are the big 3 as far as I’m concerned—they’re also the 3 that so many “Christians” seem to forget, which is one of the reasons people get turned off walk away.

As I grew away from the Church in my early 20’s, I went off on a sort of spiritual shopping spree and like a lot of people, I dabbled in eastern traditions—I got into Taoism, Buddhism, meditation & yoga and devoured a slew of new-agey books that rocked my world. All this searching continued to challenge the hogwash of institutional Christianity, while deepening my belief in all the good stuff that stuck with me. And it raised even more questions: is there really a difference between: prayer and meditation? salvation and enlightenment? the holy spirit and the Dharma? Do Jesus and Buddha hang out?

What I’ve come around to is that regardless of country or culture, the real point of religion is to raise our consciousness and bring us into the presence of the eternal, the divine, the universal mind, God, whatever you want to call it. That’s why I’m always drawn to the mystical traditions of any faith—the Sufi poets of Islam, Francis of Assisi and the Jesuits, the Gnostics, and even some pagan traditions. Every religion has its mystics and saints and every religion has its fundamentalists for whom their faith is no more than a battleground and a weapon of fear. Because religion is ultimately a language to communicate with God, and just as no language can rid the world of miscommunication and confusion, no religion is a direct and perfect channel to the divine.

And religion is definitely not the only channel we have. The arts—storytelling, poetry, music, painting, dance—all share the goal of reaching a higher consciousness. That’s why religion has always incorporated the arts, because they help us communicate with the intangible and what’s more intangible than this thing we call God? In our modern culture, we often separate art and religion—there’s a mutual contempt that’s sadly grown between the two. This show has been a beautiful meeting of those two worlds for me, a place where storytelling, poetry and a little music come together in a room to wrestle with some really big questions.

There is only a week of shows left, tickets are selling fast but we added one more performance on Sunday, May 4 at 7:30 pm. Tonight many of us will be at the Helen Hayes Awards with fingers crossed for performers and company members nominated. Even though we are nearing the end of the run we are still getting responses from our cast. Emily Webbe is making her Forum debut playing many characters including Mary Magdalene.

Photo by Melissa Blackall

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“Despair is the ultimate development of a pride so great and so stiff-necked that it selects the absolute misery of damnation rather than accept happiness from the hands of God and thereby acknowledge that He is above us and that we are not capable of fulfilling our destiny by ourselves.”

This is quoted from Thomas Merton in Guirgis’ Judas, in regards to Judas Iscariot’s ultimate succumbing to despair after having “betrayed” Jesus. And I open my contribution to the Judas blog with this statement because not only therein lies the crux of the play, but it also speaks to me on many different levels.

How dare someone say that despair, due to complete and overwhelming sadness, pain, loss, grief, oppression or violence (etc…) be reflective of one’s own pride? Should those who’ve been tortured in war-torn countries, those who’ve fled from their village to seek political asylum in another more peaceful country and who ultimately suffer from such acute post-traumatic stress that they dissociate from themselves and relive their horrors day in and day out only to develop psychosis resulting in constant nightmares and hallucinations, be labeled prideful? Honestly, this notion disgusts me. Like Freud says in the play, “any God who punishes the mentally ill is not worth worshipping.”

I almost succumbed to despair in the last four months and everyday I struggle and work terribly hard to maintain a sane and “happy” life. Back in December I was living in a ground-floor apartment in a beautiful, residential neighborhood in Alexandria, VA and while sleeping soundly in my bed, in my one-bedroom apartment, alone, I was attacked by an intruder who had slipped into my home while I let my dog out before we went to sleep that night and hid until I was in the most vulnerable states of being-asleep-or maybe he came in through the window I still don’t know, and the police seemingly had no interest in solving the details of this senseless and brutal attack. The man had a knife and attempted to rape me. But I fought him, I bit and I screamed and I got beaten up but I didn’t let him sexually assault or kill me. I fought tooth and nail to save my life. I was at war, in a battle to save my life. And I survived. If that’s not a reason to ultimately succumb to despair, I’m not sure what is.

I continued to work. I moved. And I looked forward to doing this play in the Spring. I’m not sure what was there that night. An angel? God? I’ve always been intensely spiritual, my beliefs incorporate some aspects of Christianity, Buddhism, Native American views of the Great Spirit and so on. The one thing I do know is that when I hike a mountain or watch a sunset I see God and I find refuge in this. I found refuge at 17 years old when I had to continuously hospitalize my father; I found refuge in my dogs throughout the years (which concequently means I’m TOTALLY NOT Catholic because I believe animals have souls and not only have God within them but represent God and unconditional love).

Now? I’m not sure where I find refuge anymore. It’s hard. I’m angry. I’m so incredibly angry. I understand Judas’ anger. I really do. I feel betrayed. Why did this happen to me? Why? What more do I have to endure in this life? I know people say this all the time, but it’s true, it does keep getting harder and harder.

Here I am, though. Here I am and here I’ll stay. Living. I don’t know how or why really sometimes, but I love life. I love it so much. I love laughter and love. Perhaps this is God. I don’t want to miss another sunset, I don’t want to abandon my dog. So here I stay. One step at a time.

Judas is about compassion. Judas is not about judgement or “good” or “bad”. Every time I watch the scene on stage with Judas and Jesus I hope that Judas will go with Jesus, that he will forgive himself and find the beauty in his life-in the meaning of his life. But, I sure do know how hard it is and I certainly don’t judge him for his “paralyzing, immobilizing, overwhelming sadness.”

One of the frequent topics of conversation that Michael Dove and I return to is how to develop theatre projects that are essential. We ponder, debate, and stew (probably more than is healthy) over how to create theatre that is not simply entertaining, or skillfully executed, or filled with marvelous theatricality, but vital to our modern perspectives, sensibilities, and needs. Why, you might wonder, is this such an interesting or worthy topic of conversation?

To determine what is “essential” in something as ephemeral and indefinable as “theatre” proves to be rather difficult given the enormous amount of variables that affect, shape, and dictate how a theatrical performance will run its course. But, without this determination “theatre” as it is will be relegated to a dying and irrelevant medium, easily over-shadowed by the far-reaching capabilities of film, the internet, and any number of mass media outlets. It is, forgive me, really the only question we as theatre artists should be asking, because without it we are squandering an enormous potential.

Admittedly I have had a relatively brief career in the professional theatre world, but still there have been projects that I have been enormously proud of (personally and altruistically), projects that I’d rather not think about, and few that I can honestly call “essential”. Essential theatre transcends the bounds of practical details and obligations, e.g. money, subscribers, season cohesion, boards, auditions, politics, jealous actors, jealous directors, competition, theatre groupies, awards, money, money, money.  Essential theatre taps into what theatre can do that no other artistic medium can achieve, and does it in such a way that an audience can’t help but be moved, validated, challenged, and exhilarated.

What am I getting at?

Essential theatre is a confluence of all the right factors: an accomplished director with a specific vision, a pertinent and dynamic play, a collection of actors enthusiastic and willing enough to surrender to a challenge, a group of designers who can a honor a vision with their own brand of creativity, an audience prepared to accept a journey and share in a collective experience, and a theatre willing to take a few risks. There are examples of this confluence every year throughout DC and the larger theatre community, but it seems to be an increasingly rare event, one that ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot’ captures and one that as a proponent of this “essential” concept, I want to protect, promote, and learn from.

Perhaps in a later post I can discuss why I think essential theatre happens, as I think there are a variety of factors that contribute to the previously described confluence. For now I think it worthwhile to discuss what happens when we witness this essential theatre . . . essentially, everything else slips away. For a brief moment we are left with nothing but a collection of individuals expressing ideas free from ego, free from ulterior motives, free from expectation . . . it is theatre at its most pure: the humble exchange of perspective without judgment, an explosive reminder that this is creativity examined, presented, witnessed, and evaluated all under the auspices of human beings with fragile talents and magnificent flaws.

Theatre, at its best, is a humanizing artistic medium (with more potential to be so than any other, in my humble opinion), as it is not witnessed through lenses or screens, or an interpretation of an abstracted form (i.e. painting) but an immediate and direct interaction with human expression.

When a production taps into what keeps theatre fresh, alive, and yes, essential, it is necessary, for me at least, to hold on to what made it so, for fear that theatre is becoming increasingly the medium of the slighted, the lost child of the underlings of a commercial juggernaut, rather than the medium of the connected, vibrant, and joyful proponents of bettering humanity through art.

This is just my uninformed and useless opinion, go see the play, you might not agree.

-Alexander Strain

Notes from actor Frank Britton who plays Pontius Pilate in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. Frank has also appeared in Forum show’s Everyman and Antigone. Photo by Melissa Blackall

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When we were all first informed about the opportunity to share our thoughts on this journey, I was very eager to respond, yet I found myself extremely hesitant to do so because I couldn’t articulate my experience at all. Racing, rambling thoughts couldn’t be formulated. I make a valiant effort now.

My immediate family (maternal side) is very small. My sister and I grew up rather unconventionally. I can only recall the amount of times I’ve been to church on one hand. One hand only. I believe now (as I did then) that our church-going experieces were in some way or another attempts to conform to the world around us. They more or less failed. We were never pressured to go to church, or be baptized, or practice any form of religion, which I found at one time all the more baffling because my late great-grandmother was an ordained minister. An extraordinary woman she was. Seeing her name on mail and correspondence with the title “Reverend” always fascinated me. Since she was already physically disabled around the time of my birth, mobility for her was limited. She lived just outside of Northeast DC in a small Maryland town called Fairmount Heights, so she was never far. Her house was not very ornate with religious articles, but the ones that were around were strategically and sparsely placed. She very rarely quoted scripture. I learned Psalm 133 from her, and lived by that psalm as a teen in school. She always carried a small copy of the New Testament ( in either a green or orange cover ) in her purse, yet the whole concept of religion and the practicing of it was not stressed to us at all. What she did stress, however, was education ( she was a graduate of Hampton Institute, now Hampton University, she was also a children’s literaure author late in life, although never published), living well, and “doing right”, as she lovingly worded it.

My sister and I were raised with no harsh or strict rules–we were indirectly encouraged to be individualists. I wholeheartedly support anyone who pursues the practice of the religion of their choosing, but I strongly disagree with anyone who imposes it on others to the point of discomfort. “Do what you do” is a mantra of mine. When it came to the subject of religion, I found it to be something I had naturally avoided. I’ve always been languishing in this sort of atheist / agnostic limbo—”What do I believe? Who (or what) should I believe in?” If I’ve been asking these questions since my formative years, I will continue to ask them in my remaining ones. My personal experiences and challenges have shaped my mentality when it comes to religion, and the existence of a higher power. Trials I myself have faced have always caused me to question if a higher power does exist. But then, I would always look from the outside in and realize since I was never devout from the jump, then I would ask, “Why should I not deserve to endure this? Is this punishment for not believing?” I don’t ask as much as I used to. I think that comes with age.

This production and the privilege of working on it has made such a positive impact me that it goes beyond description. Pontius Pilate is someone whose life and history has been disputed for over two millennia, and I didn’t know what to draw on or believe. This depiction of him intrigued me from the first time I read the play independently over two and a half years ago. I never judged him. As an actor, I had to believe that he believed in what he what he said he was doing, which was simply his job.

In regards to my relationship with religion and a higher power: I can’t confirm or deny anything. I only exist. I exist with some shading of hope that there is a purpose for my existence. In having said that, I believe that there may be one.

Hannah at the JUDAS opening, surrounded by Coke products

Hannah’s notes from the Last Days of Judas Iscariot program:

About Judas, not a lot is known except that he was chosen to be an Apostle, he betrayed Jesus, and then he hung his-self. Not a lot to go on.

- The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

Truly I tell you: one of you will betray me…The Son of Man is going the way appointed for him in the scriptures; but alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had never been born.

- Matthew 26:21, 24 (NEB)

The story of Judas takes up a very small part of the Gospels. Judas was an apostle. He was trusted, respected, and yet he turned on his leader. Thirty pieces of silver were placed in his hand and the course of history was changed. Jesus was kissed and arrested, tried, beaten, and put on the cross. Judas killed himself before he was able to see Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus was revered and Judas was cast as the lowest of villains.

The stories continue to be told of Judas in Hell. Judas has been reviled throughout history, along with the Jews, Caiaphas the Elder, and Pontius Pilate. Dante envisioned Judas in the lowest level of Hell, hanging out of Satan’s mouth. Only the recently unearthed Gospel of Judas shows Jesus and Judas working together. The apocryphal Gospel was admonished by early Church leaders and disappeared. God did not forgive Judas, and neither did man.

In Catholic school, Stephen Adly Guirgis was told the story of Judas. The nuns told him the story of God turning away from a man. The God that he had been told was forgiving did not forgive. This new view of a vengeful, unforgiving God made Guirgis doubt. That doubt stayed with him for years. In his introduction to the published edition of Judas, he writes,

From then on … I was in no hurry to seek out God. In fact, I had no sense of who or what God was. I did believe that “God” existed—I still do—but that was about it. And knowing or believing that God existed but avoiding him probably instilled in me a lot of shame and guilt. There’s nothing wrong with that. I wasn’t avoiding “God.” I was avoiding myself.

But Guirgis could not avoid exploring his spiritual connection for long. His doubts made him question God, and that questioning inspired his writing. In plays like Jesus Hopped the A Train and Our Lady of 121st Street, Guirgis fused his knowledge of the world surrounding him with his own spiritual quest. In The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, that quest became a trial.

Guirgis’ play questions faith and is at the same time an act of faith. The characters we see on stage come out of the Bible, but their voices come off the streets. The questions they ask are to both God and man: should Judas be forgiven? Should he have a reprieve from Hell? These are the questions asked in the courtroom. But Guirgis is implying something deeper. The arguments are not being made just for Judas. It is Guirgis on trial, it is all of us. In Guirgis’ courtroom, the audience is asked to see themselves. We are the jury, we are the judge, we are the defense, and we are the prosecution. We are Judas, stuck in self-doubt and despair, and we are Jesus, with the capability to bestow love and forgiveness. The questions we are left with are not about Judas and what has passed, but about our lives now. Can we forgive? And can we be forgiven?