November 19, 2013
By Kerry Reid
Call it "The Last Temptation of Paul." Lerner traces the last days of the title apostle, many years after that famous road-to-Damascus conversion, in a fantasia that combines loose historical context with intense religious debate, often provided by imaginary visitations to Paulus from Jesus and a ukulele-playing Roman emperor Nero. There is no doubt that these characters believe deeply in the positions they have staked out.
The play provides an interesting road map through Paulus' beliefs and his clashes with the Jewish and Roman authorities as they try to retain order among the restive populace (Jewish zealots and gentiles alike). Paulus' sin, as laid out by the Jewish high priest Hananiah (Bill McGough), is that he preaches to gentiles and suggests that they can achieve salvation without devotion to all the holy laws that Jews must follow. Hananiah sees this as a threat to Jewish identity. "If faith alone can save us, why must the Jews bother with their commandments?" It's Nero, who Glenn Stanton plays with oily charm and sardonic dyspepsia, who ends up making quite a bit of sense, especially when he croons, "It's no easy job to be God, when humans display such rigidity. Offer them beauty and wit; they'd rather have ugly stupidity." Thousands of years of sectarian violence suggest that he's not wrong [...] The philosophical context of Lerner's show is fascinating.