Fredrik Jan Hofmann, Actor,
presents a thought provoking alternative
to the commonly accepted portrayal of "Judas Iscariot"
The Theater Graz, last
evening, gave a riveting performance in Bleiburg's Catholic church, with Fredrik Jan Hofmann playing a convincing "Judas Iscariot"
Vekemans allows “Judas”
to explain himself, his motives and the conditions out of which his
actions arose.
Hardly any reference is
made to God, who, according to the only existing work in which Judas
is mentioned, should play a central role.
This Monologue, however,
deals with Judas as a person, motivated by issues other than God.
It was the Bible and the
subsequent religious movements which painted the one sided picture of
Judas as the evil, money hungry traitor,
In their grab for power,
Christianity, and in particular Roman Catholicism, made Judas, the
Jew, responsible for Christ's martyrdom and eventual death.
The slogan was loud and
clear: It was the Jews who killed Christ, and Judas, the Traitor,
gave the Romans the tool they needed to rid themselves of a
“revolutionary.
But, according to the
play, “Judas” expected Jesus Christ to have come as a liberator
from the Roman joke, and finally to save the world. He, so tells us
Vekemans, no longer wanted to be suppressed by the Romans. He wanted
to be the Master in his own land.
Was Judas just
disappointed in Jesus's seeming disinterest in Politics, in his
almost exclusive concern with the afterlife?
This one-man-play urges
the viewer/listener to consider Judas in a new light. It asks many
questions but stops short of giving answers, leaving the “thinking”
to the viewer..
In the Bible, John 17:12,
Jesus says:
While I was with them I
protected them and none of them is lost, except the son of perdition
that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
The
question rises: Was Judas's betrayal an act necessary for the
fulfillment of the Scripture? If so, why is he not celebrated instead
of being condemned? Why does Jesus call him “the son of Perdition?”
Does any of this really
make sense? Or is it just part of the entire biblical
gobbledygook?
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