For the fall play, the Mendham Players executed their adaptation of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, which highlighted the artistic talents and versatility of many Mendham students. Additionally, the stage and technology crew teams demonstrated their skills through an elaborate set depicted above. The dark yet comedic play occurs in a courtroom setting of the afterlife and highlights the ideas of love, betrayal, and redemption. Judas was one of the twelve disciples, and this question originates from Judas betraying Jesus by calling him a “rabbi.” As a result, Jesus was crucified, and Judas committed suicide. Thus, causing the play to revolve around the central question: Should Judas Iscariot be released from hell or be allowed to spend eternity in Purgatory?

Judas (Will Moul) is set on trial in the afterlife, and he is defended by his attorney Fabiana Aziza Cunningham (Leah Miskiman). The prosecuting attorney is Yusef-El Fayoumy (Daniel Malikov). Witnesses called to testify are historical figures Mother Theresa (Sarah Hayes), Sigmund Freud (Dia Cohen), Pontius Pilate (Jude Pepin), Satan (Nika Polyakov), and Jesus (Kameron Fehling). Judas is depicted as completely silent throughout the play in an unresponsive state, until late in the play, which is symbolic of him punishing himself internally. The final moments of the play highlight a moment between Jesus and Judas in which Jesus confesses his love for Judas. However, Judas is unable to accept this love because of the guilt he feels from betraying Jesus. 

This play highlighted essential themes like self-condemnation, forgiveness, justice, and love. However, the most important theme in senior Leah Miskiman’s opinion is that if “someone is super famous in history, it doesn’t mean that they were perfect, and that everyone is human. Everyone makes mistakes, and even the people you idolize have faults and flaws.” Leah plays Fabiana Aziza Cunningham, Judas’s attorney, and this is her fourth show as a part of Mendham Players. The play was both comedic and tragic, evoking a range of emotions: anguish, sympathy, and humor. These emotions are difficult to evoke alone, and Leah described the cast as a “close-knit group, [where] everyone was so close, and it made rehearsals more fun and our characters easier to grow into.” The emotion evoked throughout the play was done through the relationships created and the comfort of the cast with one another. This comfort allowed the cast to truly evoke their roles during rehearsal, while still having fun with each other. When asked about her favorite moment of the play, Leah said, “[it] was the ending of Butch Honeywell’s testimony saying that ‘you cashed in silver, Mr. Iscariot. But me? Me, I threw away gold.’” This line is about Judas directly betraying Jesus for silver, but Butchwell throwing away gold is symbolic of the spiritual connection he lost during Jesus’s death. This line, displayed on the back of the Playbill, connects to the idea of a spiritual loss for many, but also of Judas giving Jesus a worth of only thirty pieces of silver. This creates an emotional moment at the end when Jesus expresses his love for Judas because Judas gave Jesus a worth of thirty pieces of silver, yet Jesus still loves him. Additionally, this line is impactful in understanding Judas’s self-punishment in silence. 

The play was an elaborate emotional rollercoaster that was well-executed by the Mendham Players. Leah describes the process as “very rewarding. It was a long process, but it was worth it in the end.” The long process Leah describes created a gut-wrenching, yet heart-warming play that consisted of important messages that were incredibly portrayed. The Mendham Players’ next adaptation will be Les Misérables in the spring on the dates March 12, 13, and 14.  We can’t wait to see their next performance!