By Jane Horwitz
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

If ever a contemporary play gave a bunch of actors a chance to have at it, it is "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot," presented by Forum Theatre at H Street Playhouse through Sunday.

Stephen Adly Guirgis's 2004 play imagines the betrayer of Jesus on trial in purgatory before a modern, urban-sounding, religiously conflicted set of souls. Many of the actors double and triple up on roles.

"I had great actors who really, really worked their tails off," director John Vreeke says. Guirgis ("Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train," "Our Lady of 121st Street") "is a meticulous writer and what I kept saying to the cast was 'learn the score.' It's like a musician who learns a complex piece of Mozart or Bach. . . . I didn't direct this play -- I conducted it. These long speeches are like arias. And you've got to know where the dynamics are," Vreeke says.

Actor Brian Hemmingsen says he is "not religious, but I am fascinated by all these things," the questions of faith and forgiveness raised in the piece. He plays the blustery trial judge, who was a Confederate suicide in the Civil War; Saint Matthew; and Caiaphas the Elder, the Jewish high priest who turned Jesus over to the Romans.

"You couldn't ask for a nicer piece of meat as an actor," says Hemmingsen of Caiaphas's mournful, defiant turn on the witness stand. "It allows so much to be withheld and let out at the same time. It's a whooph! It's just a nice piece of meat." He adds, "I would run this show for a good six months to a year if we could."

If Caiaphas is meaty, Satan is juicy. Jim Jorgensen plays him in a fly white suit and a touch of under-eye liner. "They almost get the kind of Satan that they need," says the actor of how his fallen angel interacts with the others. Guirgis's Satan is a drinking pal to Judas (Jason McCool), who, in the play's conceit, suffers the tortures of Hell because he can't forgive himself. To Judas's hard-edged defense attorney, Cunningham (Julie Garner), the Devil is ruthlessly honest.

"In Cunningham's scene with Satan, she is unable to open her heart to God. She gives up," Garner says of her driven defense attorney, haunted by a checkered past. "She's fighting Judas's case, but she's fighting tooth and nail for herself as well, because if she can get Judas off the hook, then she can be off the hook." What Satan confronts her with "is all truth. Truth that she knows but has been unable to really come to terms with."

Scott McCormick plays the oily prosecutor El-Fayoumy, a comical flatterer. His performance has "a little bit of Bud Abbott in there, some Peter Ustinov floating around," he says. But between his droll outbursts, the character has "these sweet, sweet moments where he makes these absolutely profound points about faith and belief," says the actor, a Rorschach Theatre company member. "There are so few parts like this for guys like me. I play the character roles and I play the villains, but this is something special," he adds.

The play ends not with a climactic verdict but with a quiet postscript by a jury member -- a modern-day man making a poignant confession. And that, says Vreeke, turns out to be the point. "Two and a half hours of intense discussion boils down to a 55-year-old man who has the need to tell somebody that he cheated on his wife and he hasn't felt good about himself since."

"It's almost like a card trick," Jorgensen observes, with the playwright presenting a history lesson, putting Judas on trial, when "it's really about forgiving yourself."

Nearly 2 1/2 years after Theater of the First Amendment mounted its last full production and called a timeout to regroup, the small professional company is "coming back with a splash," says Managing Director Kevin Murray.

From June 12 to 29, TFA will be featured as a jewel in the crown of the new Mason Festival of the Arts ( http://www.masonfestival.org) at George Mason University, where the company has been in residence since 1990. TFA will do two full plays, including "Mariela in the Desert." Also on the festival menu are opera and orchestral events, readings of new plays, and showcases for works by students and seniors.

Two years ago, the university's own drama program had grown so much larger and busier that there was not enough theater space left for non-student productions. So, except for its brief First Light Festival readings of new plays each year, TFA has been dark.

Now, First Light has been folded into the Mason Festival and will feature "Dirty Pictures" by D.W. Gregory, about a physically challenged woman in love with her boss, and "Death of the Fourth Estate" by Kerry Gildea, in which two aging journalists recall the 1960s.

The first local production of "Mariela in the Desert" by Karen Zacarias ("The Book Club Play," "The Sins of Sor Juana") will be directed by Nick Olcott. The Washington-based Zacarias has revised the play and restored cuts made in Chicago, where it had its world premiere in 2005 at the Goodman Theatre. Set in Mexico in the age of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, "Mariela" is a meditation on giving one's life to one's art, or at least to one's spouse, the artist.

"Two-Bit Taj Mahal," by TFA founder and George Mason professor Paul D'Andrea, will be staged by Heather McDonald. Inspired by a real-life crime, it is about townsfolk who conspire to murder the local bully, even as he seems about to be transformed by love.

In addition, actors hired and rehearsed by TFA will appear with the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra in "Ellis Island: The Dream of America" performing excerpts from the Ellis Island Oral History Project. On June 21, marathoners can see "Love's Comedy," an opera with a libretto by TFA Artistic Director Rick Davis and a score by Kim D. Sherman, plus just about everything theatrical in the festival. "The real die-hards could put in a 12-hour day if they wanted to," Murray says.

Although he thinks "this summer festival is going to be TFA's life for a while," Murray and Davis have hopes of more. Davis, who is a vice provost at George Mason's College of Visual and Performing Arts, expects the new theatrical venues in the Washington area to have a positive effect in Fairfax. "The thing that drives theater construction is civic pride," he says.

Ever the practical managing director, Murray adds: "In order to be sustainable, we need 400 seats-plus. We need a real theater space."

"Our goal is to eventually return to a season of plays," he says. ". . . But right now, we just want to get back in the game."

· Arena Stage will hold a free open house and season preview May 30 at 7:30 to acquaint theatergoers with its second temporary venue, at the Lincoln Theatre on U Street NW. The company already is using space in Crystal City during renovation of its Southwest building. Artistic Director Molly Smith will take questions and present staged readings. Call 202-488-3300 to reserve seats.