JUDAS by That One Guy Productions, part of Brighton Fringe 2021 comes to the festival after a successful run at Orlando Fringe, JUDAS is coming!
Written by and Starring BeeJay Aubertin-Clinton, Judas brings us an alternative salacious interpretation and dramatisation of the relationship between Judas and Jesus and that infamous kiss in the garden of Gethsemane that lead to Jesus being arrested and subsequently crucified.
In this dramatisation this “all-new testament”, his Lord and saviour is described as a “lover” who is as sinful and spirited as the rest of us sinners. Most importantly, Judas is not the betrayer apparently that we were lead to believe for the last 2000 years! Judas – “ you wanna know why I betrayed … because he fucking asked me too”.
While the play is clearly a fiction piece, according to wikipedia, a leather-bound Coptic language papyrus document surfaced near Beni Masar, Egypt in the 70’s. Translated in the early 2000s, the document contains text that appears to be from the late 2nd century, and includes the self-titled “Gospel of Judas.”
In 2013, controversial Fox business host Don Imus, made a suggestion about Jesus’s sexuality, he referenced the 3rd-century religious text known as the “Gospel of Judas Iscariot” – one of the many gospels that did not make the final bible edits.
Historically passages in the bible have been (miss)interpreted for centuries. Art more often than not has represented him as white man which doesn’t match up to the ethnicities of the country he was born in.
Like the bible, the play is not supposed to be taken literally I imagine. It does raise some important points about the hypocrisy in Christian America, inequalities that existed towards women back then still existing.
While I found the play to be a little too long and over the top in parts, it was a very entertaining and original piece. I would agree not a play for your mother (if she is Christian conservative) or I would add a Fox News audience.
Brighton Fringe 2021 runs from 28 May – 27 June.
