Reinventing Judas

The yearly Buhing Kalbaryo(Live Calvary) play runs on its 15th production this year. It has been under five directors, so far. This is my second year directing the play.

Any theatrical production that remains for this long has a distinct advantage. It does not need reinventing every time. Techniques and styles that had worked in the previous productions now form the basis for the performing group to ensure the quality of the current staging.

The big challenge is to make every Buhing Kalbaryo presentation fresh and, to some good extent, different. It cannot be just exactly the same play repeated over and over again. Otherwise, the audience will get bored with the play and stop watch ingit, and the project will eventually die away.

The story of the passion of Christ shall stay intact, though. There shall be 12 apostles, not 13 even if it seems like a more ominous number. The end will still be death by crucifixion and not by firing squad, although guns are more available for props these days. The play shall remain faithful to the Biblical accounts.

However, there are aspects of the crucifixion story that are open for creative interpretation. For one, the Bible offers no in-depth study of all the characters - except perhaps that of Jesus himself. Many of the other characters have only sketchy descriptions and have since been depicted with perceptible prejudice by artists and Bible interpreters.

Let's take the character of Judas Iscariot, for instance, which is always portrayed as the classic crook. Which, perhaps, he really was, in the sense that he bartered the life of his friend and teacher with a few pieces of silver.

The problem is that our common image of Judas is one of pure evil. We see him in the movies as this red-eyed and unshaven wild animal whose sole purpose in life is self-gratification. We tend to entirely discount the possibility that the man might have had some fine traits, as well.

Jesus personally picked this man to become part of the core group tasked to spread the good news of salvation. Jesus might have initially thought of Judas to be a righteous man. In which case, Judas could not have looked like the menacing criminal we imagine him to be. Maybe Jesus even found Judas to be intelligent and trustworthy, prompting him to designate the guy as treasurer of the group.

Judas' betrayal of Jesus is definitely abhorrent. But it can serve as our warning – a reminder of the reality of evil in the world. Judas Iscariot could have just fallen prey to this dark force that is so strong that it was able to penetrate even the inner circle of the Son of God. It is possible that the man was not as bad as his deed; after all, he was remorseful in the end, to the point of taking his own life.

These thoughts occurred to me while preparing to rehearse this year's Buhing Kalbaryo. I thought that maybe Judas could be portrayed a bit differently this time. Maybe it would better serve our faith if Judas become like anyone of us, with both noble ideals and frailties. Then, maybe, it could inspire inner strength in all of us by pointing out the intricacies of the human dilemma.

We don't mean to glorify Judas Iscariot; we want to make him relevant. We won't show him as a ferocious monster but a human with an inner monster, the same inner monster that we all have inside us. We hope this will help remind us to be always on guard against our own dark side.

Buhing Kalbaryo happens on April 6, Good Friday, from the San Nicolas Parish ground sat 10 a.m., all the way until the Guadalupe Church plaza at 3 p.m.

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