Finding Jud(a)ea
(c) Grace Kimball 2023
Finding Jud(a)ea is a political drama and loose adaptation from Josephus’s recounting of the true history of Mariamne the Hasmonean and Elizabeth Cary's seventeenth-century play about Mariam the ‘fair queen.’ This particular version, which strives to address ideas of homeland, identity, obsession, and embodied agency through entirely new dialogue, takes place in an apocalyptic universe in a distant future. The world is now so harsh that people cannot go outside without covering their skin from the environment, and they must live in the companies where they work. Therefore, being fired means certain death by being sent outside, and the company culture has become one of nationalism and survival. The company Judaea is run by Herod, who rules his warehouse with an iron fist along with the help of his sister, Salome. After forcefully obtaining the company through an aggressive takeover six years earlier, Herod is summoned by their parent corporation, Rome, for unknown reasons. While he is away, Mariam, Herod's wife and the granddaughter of the founder of the company, and the other members of Judaea struggle to figure out what comes next for the company and for themselves in a world built on turmoil and betrayal.
