TORONTO - For centuries, Easter and the passion play -- a depiction of the passion of Jesus Christ -- have been inextricably intertwined.
But clearly, the artists at Birdland Theatre think it's time to quit putting all the dramatic eggs in one basket at this time of year.
Which is why, one suspects, they have chosen to revisit their acclaimed staging of Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, just in time for Easter.
After earning no less than five Dora Awards the last time out, Birdland's latest take on the play opened earlier this week in the Distillery District's Fermenting Cellar, where it will run through April 15.
But be warned, this is likely not a passion play like you've ever seen before, and not just because its major focus is, as the title implies, one Judas Iscariot, rather than the man he betrayed -- although that provides for an interesting twist or two. In fact, there is much here that would likely offend those who might be in search of the carefully measured biblical bromides offered elsewhere.
But in reclaiming Judas from the hell to which he has been consigned and putting him on trial in a little corner of purgatory named Hope -- a place that beats more than a passing resemblance to a place called New York in a post-9/11, post-crash of '08 world -- Guirgis has created a theatrical world that, both in scope and audacity, rivals any place that Tony Kushner or Wajdi Mouawad have ever taken us.
And like those two other playwrights, Guirgis thrives best in a world almost devoid of everyday convention -- a world where a trash-talking St. Monica (Zarrin Darnell-Martin) can rub shoulders with Sigmund Freud (Richard Greenblatt) and a melancholy womanizer named Butch (Adam Brazier) can try to comfort the disconsolate Judas of title, played by Shaun Smyth.
It's also a world where a blind judge (Ted Dykstra) can preside over a madhouse courtroom, trying to weigh the arguments put forth by a troubled young defence attorney (Janet Porter in a fine and measured performance) and an inept prosecutor (sadly, ineptly overplayed by Morris Panych).
In fact, with only four members of his original cast making a return to this staging, Dora-winning director David Ferry clearly has his hands full trying to sandwich Guirgis' ambitious, often sprawling script and a raft of overblown egos into what is most definitely an unconventional space and a three-hour plus time slot.
As a result, an overlong first act often degenerates into a bit of a three-ring circus badly in search of a ringmaster, as seasoned scene-stealers like Panych, Dykstra, and Greenblatt attempt to turn supporting roles into starring vehicles -- while less experienced actors like Darnel-Martin and Aviva Armour Ostroff struggle against their youth in roles written for middle-aged women, determined to turn their performances into audition pieces, despite miscasting issues.
Happily, however, Ferry anchors his piece with an equal number of centred and gifted actors determined to serve the story they are telling.
In major roles like Judas (Smyth) and Satan (an impressively understated Diego Matamoros, reprising his Dora Award-winning performance) and in supporting roles like Henrietta, mother of Judas (Louise Pitre), Simon the Zelot (Christopher Stanton) and Pontius Pilate (Philip Akin), they prove to be the real stars of this show, surrounded though they may be by those determined to convince us otherwise.
Under Ferry's constantly inventive direction, they band together to provide depth and focus, resolutely, even doggedly, returning our focus, time after time, to the complex moral questions on which Guirgis has constructed this breathtaking, often audacious play.
They are the ones, finally, that put the 'passion' in this intriguing new passion play.
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