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Culture Feature
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Re-enactment of the special kind: Passion Play 2022
RE-ENACTMENT OF THE SPECIAL KIND: PASSION PLAY 2022 A village in Germany’s Bavarian Alps is re-enacting the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – as it has done since 1634. Performed only every ten years, or in this case with a two year delay, the 42nd Passion Play premieres this month.
The following year, during the Whitsun celebration, the people of Oberammergau held the first presentation of the Play of the Suffering, Death and Resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ on a stage which they erected on the cemetery over the fresh graves of the plague victims.
come traditional only dating from the 19th and not the 17th century. More recently, under the lead of one of Germany’s most prominent stage directors, further anti-Semitic undertones were removed and non-Catholics as well as married women are now allowed to participate. “The staging changes fundamentally every time”, says Christian Stückl, who directs for the fourth time. “Since the Passion Play takes place once every ten years, I keep having to write the text in a new way, tell the story in a new way. I’ll include things I learned from the previous Play”.
Since 1634, the world’s most famous Passion Play has changed in a number of ways, such as the performance text that has be-
What has not changed though, is that the theatre production brings the people of Oberammergau together every ten years,
TEXT: WIBKE CARTER
When a deadly bubonic plague arrived on their doorstep in 1633, the villagers of Oberammergau made a vow. “Faced with the great distress that the terrible illness inflicted upon the population, the leaders of the community came together and pledged to hold a passion tragedy once every ten years. From this day forward, not a single person perished, even though a great number of them still showed signs of the plague,” wrote Pastor Daisenberger in his village chronicles. 38
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Issue 93
| May 2022
