Judas Unicorn: The Staged Reading
12 & 13 April 2018, 7-9 p.m.
Performance Space, Visual Arts Facility 306, UC San Diego
Stemming from MFA student Sam Wohl's graphic novel, JUDAS UNICORN, this play was developed with Professors Deborah Stein, Robert Brill and Robert Castro from UC San Diego Theatre and Dance. The reading will be staged in conspiracy with the talented and prolific theatre group Company 157.
Judas Unicorn is a about a family living in the woods in a late civilization in which human beings are considered an invasive species. The context is inspired by a technique for controlling the population of feral goats on the Galapagos Islands. There, they create a bait-goat, called a “judas goat.” The judas goat is overdosed with chemical pheromones and used to lure feral goats out into the open where they are killed by helicopter fire. In this play, Unicorns are designed to lure humans to their death in the same way. One day, the family finds a half-dead unicorn in the woods. Its potency as bait has expired and the family decides to keep it. The identity of this family, the dynamics between them, and their capacity for violence pivot on the introduction of this rare guest.
Judas Unicorn is an allegory about the struggle to maintain the integrity of being human in a malnourished society and explores themes of violence masked as compassion, the politics of love, and the banality of evil. It holds up a mirror to the world at this moment in our history and asks us to face our own propensity for violence, and instead to cultivate empathy and kindness, even if our sense of identity is obliterated.
Run time approx. 1hr 15 mins.