The costume mistresses rummaged through a large Tupperware box filled with jewel-tone choir robes and queen-size knee-high stockings.

It was the first rehearsal last week of Columbia Street Baptist Church’s biennial performance in downtown Bangor of a play inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper” – and Jesus and the Apostles needed to get dressed.

The men of the cast milled around the sanctuary with photocopied scripts in hand and swaths of fabric draped over their T-shirts, flannel shirts and jeans.

Costume mistress Heather Koch was not distracted by the activity that buzzed around her.

“Does Jesus have a scarf?” she asked the small crowd that hovered near the costume area.

“Yeah, he has a blue scarf,” Jared Swartz said. “I’m Jesus.”

Swartz, a young, bearded man clad in a red choir robe, dramatically tossed the deep-blue scarf over one shoulder.

“Oh boy, I’m accessorizing now,” he said.

Another Apostle pulled a red choir robe over his street clothes. The static crackled loudly, and the man’s hair levitated even after his robe settled down.

“We’re going to have to spray some Cling Free on these,” Koch said. “Wow, that looks smashing.”

A small, framed print of “The Last Supper” was propped for easy reference in a pew near the costume box. The rich colors of the print glowed in the dim light that filtered through the church’s golden stained-glass windows.

The painting, a cornerstone of Western art, captures the moment when Jesus announces to the Apostles that he is aware that one of them will betray him.

The Apostles react to this revelation in telling ways. One flings up his hands in disbelief. Three gesticulate angrily at each other. And Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, looks at Jesus with his dark face hidden in deep shadows.

The moment of revelation had been a popular theme for generations of artists before da Vinci, but his is the most memorable.

“One, he puts Judas on the same side of the table as everyone else,” said Michael Grillo, art historian at the University of Maine. “Two, he paints the moment of revelation … and couches it in the psychological response of the Apostles. He’s done it extremely well. Usually the Apostles are much more contemplative and internal.”

The psychological punch packed by the painting is the reason why Columbia Street Baptist has chosen to mount performances of “The Last Supper” about every two years since 1979.

During the course of the play, actors portraying the Apostles hold still in the poses shown in the painting until each gets a three-minute monologue. The actor portraying Jesus Christ remains silent.

“It’s a living dramatization of that painting,” director Tyke McKay of Orono said.

Actor Steve Estey of Newburgh, who plays one of the two Apostles named James, said he appreciates the way the monologues help bring the Bible to life.

“The moment it captures is very poignant,” he said. “What you get is a look in each of the disciples’ heads and get to know them a little bit. You get to follow their personality and their relationship with Christ.”

Da Vinci was commissioned by the Duke of Milan to paint “The Last Supper” onto the walls of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie near Milan between 1495 and 1498.

The artist, perhaps the original “Renaissance man,” used an innovative medium.

“It was a mix … of three distinct media: oil, tempera and dry fresco,” Grillo said. “Like a lot of Leonardo’s stuff, it was highly experimental. It started deteriorating as soon as he painted it.”

Its fame grew even as the paint flaked off the convent walls.

According to one legend, da Vinci ran behind schedule while painting, and only his threats to make the prior of the convent the model for Judas bought him the time he needed to finish.

Another story claimed that da Vinci painted Jesus first. When he was ready to paint Judas, he scoured jails until he found the perfect criminal type. The man told him, “Oh God, have I fallen so low? I am the same man you painted just seven years ago as the figure of Christ!”

Grillo said that such legends serve a purpose.

“This gets into the connection between good and evil,” he said. “You’re really into that closeness of Satan being a fallen angel – it’s only the most powerful who can become the most good or the most evil.”

The painting’s fame grew greater as the centuries passed.

Napoleon’s troops cut a door through “The Last Supper.” The painting survived a close call with World War II. A bomb hit the church on Aug. 16, 1943, knocking a wall down. The masterpiece was saved only through the careful placement of sandbags.

“The Last Supper” has also survived many restoration attempts, including a recently completed one that took 20 years. Virtually none of the original paint remains.

The eerie legends, the painting’s rocky history and Leonardo’s undisputed gift for combining art and psychology have combined to make the “The Last Supper” a powerful, popular work of art.

“It’s a very significant painting,” Grillo said. “And you think that most people know it through these very cleaned-up versions. There is a certain mystique of the missing, a mystique of the ruins.”

The men who spent most of Holy Week frantically practicing for the Maundy Thursday and Good Friday performances of “The Last Supper” in Bangor said they try to help the audience feel a greater connection to the painting and to the moment it portrays.

At the end of the rehearsal, McKay went over Judas’ monologue with actor Jim Snow of Hampden. The two men were alone on the dim stage.

Snow, a burly and mild-mannered man wearing an athletic shirt and sneakers, began to speak his lines.

“He hints that he knows what I’ve done,” he said slowly. “I have my reasons.”

Snow found and held the gaze of the few remaining people in the audience as his voice rose in volume and power.

“My soul is not as black as some of you think it is,” he said. “Nor is your soul so white.”

After Snow was done, a moment of excited silence passed in the sanctuary.

“Take your time,” McKay said. “That is the capstone of this. Oh, this is going to be great.”