ACT II
(The Tablinum [or large room behind the Atrium] of Mary Magdalene’s villa at Bethany. At the back, leading one into the other, the Atrium and a long vestibule with marble columns.)
The play follows a woman with a troubled past whose presence in a Roman-ruled town provokes moral outrage, intimate entanglements, and political tension. Across three acts, public condemnation, private encounters, and a decisive crisis expose competing claims of punishment, compassion, and authority. A messianic figure intervenes to halt communal violence, while the woman faces a wrenching choice that could either imperil or save that figure depending on whether she sacrifices herself for a Roman official. Themes of redemption, social hypocrisy, the limits of law and mercy, and the individual’s struggle between desire and duty are developed in evocative domestic and civic settings.
(The Tablinum [or large room behind the Atrium] of Mary Magdalene’s villa at Bethany. At the back, leading one into the other, the Atrium and a long vestibule with marble columns.)