We got so preoccupied with the potential horrors of Y2K computer failure and other portents that it was easy to forget how each fresh new decade brings with it Europe’s most famous Passion play. Oberammergau’s “Tragedy of the Passion” has been electrifying the Bavarian Alps since 1634.
The Passion play text used since 1860 has been reworked for this year to erase implications that the Jews killed Jesus Christ and that women played a minor role in the events leading up to Easter.
This major revision had been the big news in the months leading up to the premiere performance in May. Director Christian Stuckl, 38, a star in Germany’s theatrical scene, created brand-new staging. Otto Huber, 54, a professor of languages and drama, modernized the script. So the “Tragedy of the Passion” has become a “Play of Redemption,” according to one theological scholar, wherein guilt is assessed even-handedly, if at all. Officially, the title is “The Oberammergau Passion Play of the Suffering, Death and Resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ,” which still has a nice 18th Century ring to it.
“It is important to emphasize that Jesus was born and died an observant Jew,” Huber wrote in a Passion play guidebook, “and that He was executed by collusion of an envious Jewish religious faction and a brutal, ambitious Roman governor, and that, tragically, for many centuries the gospel message was perverted and Passion plays became the occasion of murderous attacks by Christians on Jews.”
Some residents of Oberammergau have been less than delighted with these and other breaks with tradition. Their village ancestors made a vow in 1633 to mount a play about the suffering, dying and resurrection of Christ as a way to ward off the Black Plague, which already had killed off a great number of loved ones.
Theologian Ludwig Modl, adviser to Oberammergau Passion Play 2000, believes the villagers’ thinking went this way: “They decided: `The story will give us hope and at the same time admonish us: Live the way He lived. If you do that, you will do everything you can to eliminate all those conditions that bring disaster and death.'”
The first-of-the-decade performance schedule started in 1680, and continued with interruptions during wartime plus occasional deviations and odd-year performances for special occasions.
Its place on the calendar this year marks no particular holiday, except that late May through early October is the time when visitors are most likely to be booking package tours and the weather gets tolerable. It’s also when the 2,200 members of the cast and crew — all Oberammergau citizens (one tradition still upheld) — might take occasional days off from their worldly concerns.
For example, the two men who alternate in the role of Jesus must juggle their work schedules and their grueling time on stage. The play goes on every day but Tuesday and Thursday and lasts 5 hours and 45 minutes (plus break). Even so, Anton Burkhart, 29, continues to fulfill his duties as a forest ranger. And Martin Norz, 34, still checks in regularly at city hall, where he holds an administrative position. Their employers’ grooming codes obviously tolerate long hair and beards.
“Oh, yes, I must still work,” Norz said on the day before his debut performance as Jesus Christ, “but that is all just part of it.”
Oberammergau, the town — population 5,000 — would grind to a halt if everyone involved in the Passion play did nothing else but that. Yet it’s hardly an amateurish undertaking. The principals are paid for their demanding roles and carry them out like seasoned troupers. Staging, music and costuming would meet professional standards anywhere.
At various times, the wide, outdoor stage holds hundreds of people, small herds of sheep and goats, donkeys, a horse, armored Roman soldiers or 48 choristers wearing long, flowing gray and maroon robes with handsome gray hats shaped like the front end of a bullet train.
The citizens who put on Passion Play 2000 live tucked away in a village so picturesque that streams of motor coaches pull in every day, even in years without the play. Tourists wander about, admiring the chalet-style buildings with their trompe d’oeil murals depicting hunting scenes or fairy tales. A few walls are painted to suggest elaborate window frames and doorways. This is the stuff of storybooks, the kind of place that highlights the itinerary of many a vacationer. Men wear lederhosen and Tirolean hats with shaving brushes in the hatbands. No one laughs at them.
Oberammergau, the town, fills a small valley formed by the Ammer River. Emerald slopes covered with meadows and clusters of evergreens nestle under snowy peaks, making an enchanting backdrop for the stucco and wood homes and stores that line the narrow, cobblestone streets. As in most attractive villages, everywhere, a lot of the commerce involves restaurants, hotels and souvenirs.
But Oberammergau carries a unique line of goods. Woodcarving is the major art form here and has been since the 16th Century. At first, most of the works depicted the Crucifixion or the Nativity, so the carvers — all men, of course — were known as Herrgottsschnitzer, or “God carvers.” Intricate, handmade figures — not all of them religious — fill the display windows. Rare and elaborate examples of the woodcarver’s art, including unbelievably detailed Nativity scenes, can be found in a small museum near the Passion play area.
Most enthralling of all are carvings of the kraxentrager, the peddler who sold woodcarvers’ products out on the street. He would wear a kraxe, a frame something like an open backpack, completely draped with toys, puppets, figurines and religious carvings. All of those things become exquisite miniatures when the woodcarvers of today whittle a kraxentrager figure.
Oberammergau’s Passion play theater looks out of place in such quaint surroundings. It’s a practical, hulking, modern structure, painted pink and lime green with walls devoid of pixies or stags. Inside, the auditorium seats 4,700 under a high ceiling. Audiences face an immense, open-air stage. Hidden microphones carry every declamation and goat bleat back to the farthest row.
Over the centuries, the play grew from a devotional exercise performed in the graveyard of the parish church into a massive production requiring an elaborate, state-of-the-art support system. Last year, the town spent more than $7 million for stage improvements.
Yet, the Oberammergau Passion Play remains an open-air event in the sense that the theater is unheated and the show goes on in all but the most drenching rain. On the chilly premiere day, May 21, hundreds of patrons carried blankets. Children in the cast, who appear by the scores in several crowd scenes, wore their winter jackets when they came to work, parking their bicycles in racks behind the stage door.
About 9:15 a.m., a brass ensemble, amplified so the whole of Oberammergau could hear, heralds the beginning of a new Passion Play season. At 9:30 sharp, the 48 choristers form a line across the stage and a male soloist intones, in German, “Prostrate yourselves in holy wonder, humans, bent low under Adam’s burden! Peace be with you! From Zion renewed grace!”
Although the action of the play concentrates mostly on Christ’s Passion, the Old Testament comes in frequently. Director Stuckl has inserted several tableaux vivants — depicting episodes that prefigure the life and death of Jesus Christ: Angels appear, clothed in brightly colored gowns with matching wings; Cain despairs; the pharaoh expels Moses; Daniel enters the lions’ den…
Steel doors open to suddenly reveal the living dioramas. Characters wear stylized costumes unlike any painted by Renaissance artists — dyed in vivid colors, robes hard-edged instead of flowing. The backgrounds are abstractions, rather than busy biblical temples and gardens: a huge golden calf here, a pride of strangely black lions there…
Jesus, his disciples, Mary, Joseph and Mary Magdalene have wardrobes more like those one would expect — simple garments in plain gray, black or beige. The high priests, however — all but one of them cast as villain — wear grotesquely tall hats that resemble upside-down nuclear power plants, some white, others brightly colored yellow or blue.
The high priests first appear as Jesus enters Jerusalem amidst much fanfare. Crowds gather bringing goats and sheep. Jesus pauses at a temple, its courtyard alive with sellers and buyers, and roars, “What do I see here? Is this God’s house or a marketplace?” He kicks over an urn full of precious oils, releases a covey of pigeons, shoos off a few lambs and declares, “There is enough room for your business outside the temple. `My house,’ says the Lord, `shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples!’ But you have made it a den of thieves! Clear all of it out.”
This makes the high priests angry enough to plot Christ’s death. Jesus sees them as corrupting Judaism. They see him as a rival who would usurp their power. As Huber, the scenarist, explains, “Anti-Jewish stereotypes of money-hungry merchants have been cut.” Also, Judas now betrays with political zealotry as motive, rather than greed. And denunciations of him have been eliminated to cancel out anti-Semitic undertones and replace them with the spirit of Jesus’ instruction: “Judge not, so you will not be judged.”
Large chunks of dialogue and lengthy choral passages stitch the play together to ensure no one misinterprets its humanistic intent. A thick blue textbook on sale all over Oberammergau for $3.70 provides English translation as well as the complete text in German. After more than six hours of glancing at the pages and looking up quickly so as not to miss any of the spectacle, a lot of the audience left the theater rubbing their necks.
Yet the premiere seemed to keep most people spellbound. Leaning forward in hard, narrow wooden seats with no room to stretch the legs, spectators sat through the 2-hour morning session with nary a squirm and, fortified by a 3-hour lunch break, hung on for the second 3 hours. The realistic gore and horror of the crucifixion came close to being unbearable — and therefore utterly fascinating.
Afterward, the two men who play Christ said that scene was the most difficult — not so much emotionally as just plain physically painful, despite all the clever stagecraft. Anton Burkhart, in a suit and tie, wandered through the crowded press tent looking relieved. Hardly anyone recognized him.
And that might sum up the miracle of Oberammergau Passion Play: The players aren’t stars, but they put on a riveting show. Under all those robes and angels’ wings are forest rangers, clerks, a glazier, a hotel manager, high school students, pre-schoolers, pupils, teachers, real estate dealers, a pediatric nurse.
And, yes, a woodcarver also plays a part. Helga Stuckenberger portrays Mary Magdalene.
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
Oberammergau lies about 75 miles south of Munich and can be easily reached by train or the A95 Autobahn in the direction of Garmisch.
THE DETAILS
Performances of Passion Play 2000 are held every Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Oct. 8 for those making advance arrangements that include a one- or two-night accommodations package. Prices for those range from about $165 to $376 per person, depending on the class of lodgings and number of nights. Saturdays through Oct. 7 are devoted to playgoers who have not purchased a package. Their tickets cost $46 or $69, depending on seat location. A limited number of individual tickets may become available for any date on the schedule.
The play starts at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m. with a lunch break from 12:15 to 3 p.m.
Behind the theater, an installation called “14 Stations” by American artist Robert Wilson features sound and light presentations. It can be visited free of charge.
Wheelchair users needing help from a companion get free admission for that second person, or an immediate refund if that person already has purchased a ticket.
RESERVATIONS
For reservations and specific information, write: Office of the Passion Play 2000, Reiseburo, Eugen-Papst-Strasse 9a, 82487 Oberammergau, Germany. Or call 011-49-0-8822-9231-0; fax 011-49-0-8822-9231-90; e-mail tourist-info@oberammergau.de; Internet oberammergau.de.
INFORMATION
For general information about the Passion play and visits to Germany, contact the German National Tourist Office, 122 E. 42nd St., Chanin Building, 52nd floor, New York, NY 10168-0072; 212-661-7200; fax 212-661-7174; e-mail gntony@aol.com; www.germany-tourism.de.
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Robert Cross’ e-mail address is bcross@tribune.com.
