Passion Play Reflects Changing Attitudes : Easter story: A 356-year-old production in Oberammergau, West Germany, is revised to eliminate anti-Semitic images and to give women a larger role.

With a script containing nearly 100 changes recommended by Jewish and Catholic scholars and a cast including hundreds more women than ever before, this tiny Bavarian town is about to complete its 39th season of once-a-decade performances of the Oberammergau Passion Play.

First performed in 1634, the play has faced a battery of critiques and often been revised in its 356-year history.

Changes were made for this year’s production to eliminate what Jewish leaders considered anti-Semitic images and to begin giving women a wider role in the production. Rabbi James Rudin, national interreligious affairs director for the American Jewish Committee in New York, welcomed the changes but suggested that a new script be written for the performance in the year 2000. “They are to be commended . . . but they have gone as far as they can with the 19th-Century script.”

About 500,000 people descend on Oberammergau for the account of Jesus’ final days.

The 4,700-member audience is seated in a covered building about the size of a large airplane hangar, while the stage is uncovered and vulnerable to the mixed blessings of natural lighting and inclement weather. The natural lighting can often emphasize the more dramatic moments, as at one recent performance when the sun, breaking through the clouds, made a pool of light illuminating Jesus at the Last Supper. Later, the sun broke through again to light the solitary figure of Judas as he agonized over his deed of betrayal.

The performers, all amateurs, are chosen two to three years in advance of the May-to-September production. Since there is no amplification, those with major speaking or singing roles are given 18 months of vocal training. Additionally, some physical training is necessary, especially for the actors portraying the role of Jesus. They must practice special exercises for the crucifixion scene, which requires them to perch precariously--and sometimes painfully--on the cross for almost an hour.

More than merely a bargain with God to stop the rampant Black Plague from decimating the village, the play started as “a performance directed to God, not to man,” explained Otto Huber, the assistant director. “The people in the Middle Ages lived in fear of God sending down one of his three arrows of judgment--war, famine, or plague,” Huber said. “So they performed the passion of Christ to remind God that Christ had already suffered for their sins.”

The Oberammergau village fathers vowed to enact this biblical event every 10 years “until the end of the ages.”

The play has become one of the town’s major sources of income, much like the wood carving for which it and other Bavarian villages are known. Some visitors stay overnight with the performers. About 2,000 of the 5,000 residents are involved in the play as actors, musicians or in other backstage and managerial positions.

Increasing pressure has been placed upon the village since the end of World War II to remove what some consider anti-Judaistic images from the text and other elements of the performance. Since its 1984 performance (a special 350th-year anniversary season) changes suggested by a team of Jewish and Catholic scholars have been made. The play is still based on a script written in the early 1800s.

Huber has written a 23-page paper just to explain the changes made this year to “avoid anti-Judaistic misunderstandings.” That has been done in part by eliminating the “collective guilt” or united resistance by Jews that had been previously implied. Debate and disagreement about Jesus’ teachings are evident even among the Jewish high priests.

Although they are portrayed as the most resistant group toward Jesus’ teachings, they are no longer dominated by rabbinical legal concerns and greed. Instead, they are shown as fearful of a political uprising among the Jews that would cause a backlash from the occupying Roman military forces.

Judas, the disciple who betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, is portrayed as a troubled and confused man involved in a movement more powerful than he anticipated, rather than as a “greedy Jew.”

Costume changes were also made. The high priests wear black robes of authority to better stand out in the mass scenes--sometimes involving as many as 900 people--and to illustrate the factions and divisions of Jesus’ followers and opponents. The Roman soldiers and rulers wear military garb to more clearly define their presence among the Jewish townspeople and to make clearer the point that the crucifixion was a Roman execution and not a Jewish one.

Women have also forced those who put on the play to make concessions, but their victory had to be won in court.

Feminists won the right for married women and women over 35 to participate in the play, something that had previously been forbidden.

“This is especially significant when you consider that the men have never had such restrictions placed on them,” said Monika Lang, one of the leaders in the court fight.

Women also won the right to take part in the Passion Play Committee, the ruling body that guides the production each decade.

The play portrays the events from Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem through his crucifixion and resurrection a week later, as well as the corresponding conflicts in the Jewish community, among the disciples and between Judas and the high priests.

The set, another point of contention, is a reproduction of a 1930 set and a compromise between what Huber referred to as the grander “Ben Hur, Hollywoodlike” set of 1980 and 1984 and the more abstract set proposed by director Christian Stuckl. The spare, Romanesque sandstone colored central stage and adjacent buildings and passageways lend themselves to a variety of staging techniques and several awe-inspiring mob scenes.

Stuckl finds the play “has something important in it that I can connect with . . . not with any one character necessarily, but I identify with the story overall.” He believes the actor portraying Jesus should have personal integrity and display a lack of arrogance or pride.

Those who attend the play range from devout nuns to mildly intrigued tourists. One Anglican couple from England had heard about the play for years and said the Catholic overtones did not interfere with their enjoyment of the performance.

Bob Thornton, an endodontist from San Jose, Calif., said he had come as a part of a tour and “wasn’t especially excited . . . but now that I’ve seen it, I am moved by the strength and humanity of Jesus. As a new believer myself, I feel that I identify with his humanity and that he is more relevant to me in this way because I had not seen him in that manner before.”