Sam Wanamaker Playhouse,London
This imagined encounter between Jesus and a crazed Roman emperor is deeply flawed but is given a strong, clear production
You have to move back to Shaw’s Saint Joan to find the final great theatrical clash between spiritual and secular power. But while John Wolfson, or curator of scarce books at Shakespeare’s Globe in London,has had the big, bold concept of bringing together Tiberius Caesar and Jesus Christ, and his play lacks the mental firepower and musical eloquence one associates with Shaw. Wolfson has seized on a passage in the unusual Testament apocrypha which suggests that the ailing Roman emperor sought to employ the miraculous healing power of a magician called Jesus. In Wolfson’s version,Tiberius sails from Capua to Judea to find this mystery man and winds up in an inn at Lydda (modern-day Lod in Israel). Matters are complicated by the presence of Tiberiuss insane, power-hungry nephew, and Caligula,and by the fact that Christ has been crucified shortly before the emperor’s arrival. But finally Tiberius and the risen Christ meet for a showdown to debate the respective power of earthly empire and spiritual redemption.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com