Devil's Passion or Easter in Hell, The: A divine comedy in one act (Modern Plays) - Softcover

Butcher, Justin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1350005347 ISBN 13: 9781350005341

Publisher: Methuen Drama, 2016

Synopsis

Within the next hour, our operatives will isolate, engage and capture or kill the notorious leader of the most extreme, dangerous and contagious ideology to emerge in the modern era, whose terror activities represent the gravest threat to our interests across the region and the wider world. I refer, of course, to the radical preacher and populist demagogue Y shua Bar-Yessuf the man known, by way of shorthand to our operatives, as Jesus .

Satan, the narrator of Justin Butcher's one-man play who is looking out for our best interests, is on a mission to harness the ways of the dangerous extremist preacher Jesus. Jesus' radical teachings and popularity have the potential to wreak havoc in the Middle East. This is exactly the sort of man the government warn us of, again and again.

This clever and evocative passion play from the devil's perspective considers Jesus' relevance to contemporary issues, and retells the story of Christ's life from the perspective of the enemy. The Devil's Passion received its world premiere in June 2015 at St James's, Piccadilly, and was revived and toured in 2016.

About this title

Review

Justin Butcher's The Devil's Passion is a welcome antidote to the dull and done to death, a light sandblasting for jaded souls. It's also a timely piece, casting Jesus in the role of extremist preacher, whose dangerous ideas have the potential to cause untold instability in the Middle East and here at home . . . And while a passion play from the Devil's perspective may naturally evoke a gleefully heretical flavour, Butcher's beautifully-written piece is as reverent as such a post-Screwtape exercise can be while still entertaining ... Perhaps the most poignant moment is when Butcher has Satan tempt Jesus on the cross to give it up and pack it in by showing him how generations of Christians will sanitise his sacrifice, allowing gold and silversmiths to smooth his suffering into decorative mannequins for church walls and necklaces. - Huffington Post

Powerful, imaginative and marvelously written . . . an extraordinary and original creation
- Sir Paul Scofield on Justin Butcher's "Scaramouche Jones"

Extraordinary solo piece by Justin Butcher . . . hilarious, picaresque and terrifying
- Sunday Times on "Scaramouche Jones"

Fascinating, poignant, funny
- The Times on "Scaramouche Jones"

Justin Butcher's gloriously elegiac prose . . . reverberates in the memory
- Irish Independent on "Scaramouche Jones"

"Unique . . . stunning . . . a new kind of theatre" --- Metro on "Scaramouche Jones"

About the Author

Justin Butcher is a playwright whose Scaramouche Jones or The Seven White Masks, starring Pete Postlethwaite, premiered at the Dublin Theatre Festival in 2001 and was revived at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014. Butcher read Classics at Oxford and subsequently trained at Drama Studio London. He has worked extensively as an actor, writer, director and musician all over Europe. Plays include King of Fools (commissioned by Westminster Abbey in 1995, it had five successful UK tours); Birth of the Jongleur (a one-man show commissioned for the Greenbelt Arts Festival, 1995); The Millennium Man, a modern adaptation of the Mysteries (Theatre Royal, Bath, 2000); Guantanamo Baywatch (New Players, 2004) and Go to Gaza, Drink the Sea (Theatro Technis, 2009).

About this edition

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1350005347
• ISBN 13: 9781350005341
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 68