Easter Saturday saw me at St Andrew's to see the Passion Play so long awaited. Written by Kate Miller and directed by Trevor Georges, this was not just some Am Dram production, but a play with some pedigree.
On Good Friday morning, in the town centre, we heard four monologues, also written by Kate, which whet our appetite. From them, it was clear that the play wasn't just set in the past, but dealt with the present day sufferings of rich people in a comfortable county town.
Yes - people do suffer in comfortable Hertford. To a surprising degree. Whenever people point the finger at God, and ask angrily why he didn't prevent a particularly hideous example of suffering, I usually think of the pain of so many people, carefully concealed behind what look like successful lives. No one ever blames God for not sparing their suffering, but any time there's an earthquake, or a child dies of cancer, God cops it with both barrels.
So I was expecting a play that would be floating on a sea of pain.
Instead it began playfully, with Jesus and his disciples dressed in bodywarmers and beanies, trying to gatecrash a private function at the Temple. A little fundraiser, organised by Caiaphas and his pals, schmoozing the rich and well connected, aimed at creaming off a little of their spare cash while leaving them with a warm charitable glow.
Predictably, Jesus (or Yesh as he is called in this play) spoils the party. Played by John Holden-White, Yesh has a playful innocence about him, His cleansing of the Temple isn't a calculated act, aimed at provoking political action against him: it's a thing of the moment, prompting him into a rerun of the beatitudes. Judas steps forward, trying to coach Jesus into action, giving us the clue as to how this play sees the betrayer. Like a footballer's agent, Judas sees his role as getting the most out of Yesh's talent. He gives him little pep talks like an anxious manager.
Soon Yesh is organising his Last Supper. It's a curry above a pub, in a room that's too small for the table. Organised it isn't. Perhaps he should have put Judas in charge. But it led to a great line - "Was that my last meal? Should have had a tandoori."
The disciples are an example of inclusiveness - a complete mixture of men and women, and Mags, (Mary Magdalene?) has her own clear ideas of what her Messiah should be doing. She argues passionately against his risk-taking, while it is dawning on Yesh that he really is in danger, and perhaps, danger is just where God wants him to be.
Peter is a small and whiny man, not a natural leader, found fishing on a reservoir after being made redundant. He can't believe or accept Yesh's trust in him. The big man is John - with few words during the first half of the play, but a solid reassuring presence. But it is Judas who drives the first half - his nervous crackling energy sets the pace - electric acting from Rob Madeley. He sounds confident even when he isn't, but we sense that he is driving blind and heading for disaster.
After the interval, the tone darkens. There are scenes with the excellently sinister Thom Jackson-Wood, playing Annas as a weaselly collaborator who has Pontius Pilate's ear. Caiaphas is manipulated by his shady colleague into forcing through an execution, and Yesh is duly arrested. Judas thought he's arranged it nicely - a few nights in prison just to get his man out of a tight spot, then he'll be free to ramp up his message and build up a following who can fight. But events slide out of his control, and Yesh is on trial for his life.
We see the agony through the eyes of Mary, who pleads to be allowed to see Yesh and speak to him. Superb acting from Julia Thomas moved the whole audience, as her shrieks of a mother's misery tore through the church.
How hard it is to stage a crucifixion! After a somewhat clunky whirring, as the cross was winched slowly upwards, the answer here was to use a kind of lightning/electric shock effect (perhaps I'm reading too much into it to see a nod to One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest?) and Jesus is dead and buried, thanks to the offices of a bookish Joseph of Arimathea, who remembers Yeshua as a 12 year old prodigy, answering questions in the Temple.
Peter and Judas have moving monologues, Judas brandishing his noose, and then comes the finest moment for me - the harrowing of hell. In the dark, Judas stands, surrounded by all the cast who walk round and round him, echoing words that shift in and out of a conversation with Jesus. Yeshua and Judas both ask each other for forgiveness for trying to use the other, and when Judas finally struggles to find forgiveness in his heart, he hears the offer to follow his master our of his place of torment.
As the lights come up, the resurrection scenes are played out - back to the reservoir for a spot of fishing, big John comes into his own as Mary's adopted son, and Yesh reappears, back to his jaunty self, lighting up a barbeque, commissioning little Peter to "feed my lambs" and tenderly receiving his mother's love.
Weaknesses? There were a few. It's hard to make slow painful death look convincing, even with some expert writhing during the electric shock moments. The resurrection ending, for me, felt too static. There wasn't enough sense of the disciples being sent out, and Yesh was there right to the end, as if everything was back how it was. No Ascension to force the disciples to move on. Joanna's self-unmasking - Catherine Forrester calling herself by her real name at the end - fell flat for me, which was a shame after she had drawn her character so well throughout.
Honourable mentions for Sarah Lawn, who played her several small parts with great aplomb, Charlie Abbott showing both strength and tenderness in her role as Mags, and the amateurs Wayne Matthews, who became more and more convincing as the play went on, and Stuart Handysides, whose James had the role of tidying up after everybody else, and propping up a drunk Peter, filled with remorse for betraying his Lord.
I was warned that it was not a conventional play, that as a Christian there would be things I wouldn't agree with. Actually there were few such moments. I suppose the sense in which Yesh felt his way into events, rather than operating to a divine plan, might raise certain theological eyebrows, but Mark's gospel in particular hints at a Jesus who made quite a lot up as he went along, so I was comfortable with this. The treatment of Judas? No shocks there - his character has to be rehabilitated somehow, after 2000 years of opprobrium, and this was a coherent attempt.
One final big feature to mention is the references to contemporary pain. By stepping in and out of a present day setting, and a Bible times setting, the play draws in a number of current sources of pain. So redundancy is explored, bereavement of course, exploitation by the rich, self-image, and more. This is the way in which we are invited to place ourselves into this age old story, and hear the message of liberation afresh.
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