The scene of the Garden of Gethsemane in Verges is the definitive bridge between freedom and the Passion. We leave the bare stone of the Square to enter a stage adorned with real olive trees.
Here, the silence of prayer is shattered by the clash of weapons. This portrayal is a moment of brutal contrasts, conveying to the audience the solitude and anguish of Jesus before his betrayal.
The Agony and the Appearance of the Angel
While the apostles Peter, James, and John fall asleep around a real fire, Jesus confronts his most human agony.
Kneeling, he offers a prayer to the Father. At this moment of ultimate vulnerability, the figure of the Angel appears—an iconic image of the Verges Procession—offering him the chalice of the Passion.
Jesus’s determination to accept his fate marks the shift towards the imminent tragedy.
Judas’s Kiss: The Sign of Betrayal
The stillness of the Garden of Gethsemane in Verges is torn apart by the arrival of Judas, followed by a squad of **The Jews** with chains and torches, and the **Manages** with their blaring trumpets.
Judas uses the signal agreed upon in the Sanhedrin: a kiss to identify the Master in the darkness. This gesture of false affection is the point of no return, unleashing violence on the stage.
The Miracle of Malchus’s Ear
The scene contains Jesus’s final act of healing. When Peter, in a fit of courage, draws his sword and cuts off Malchus’s ear, Jesus immediately intervenes.
Despite being about to be captured, he touches his attacker’s ear and heals him completely.
Malchus, however, responds with an even crueler betrayal, declaring him under arrest. It is at this moment that Jesus is bound and rebukes his captors for coming for him like a thief.
The Path to Judgment
The Gethsemane scene ends with a desolate image. The disciples flee in terror, and the prisoner is pushed by soldiers towards his fate.
The machinery of the trial is set in motion, marking the next phase of The Verges Passion Play. The next stop is the tribunal of Pontius Pilate.
