A Bavarian Passion Play Makes Amends

Conceived as a talisman against the plague, corrupted by politics through the ages and conscripted by Adolf Hitler to vilify Jews, the controversial Passion Play staged once a decade by this Bavarian hamlet unveiled a radically reformed millennial performance Sunday exorcised of anti-Semitic intonations.

With the most applauded revision since Oberammergau villagers first gathered on stage in 1634 to present the last five days in the life of Jesus, the producers of this most famous of Passion plays infused new momentum into the quest by Pope John Paul II to mend two millenniums of division between Christians and Jews.

For the first time since its inception, the Passion Play omitted all reference to a blood oath that cast collective guilt on Jews for the death of Christ and sought to portray the Crucifixion as a tragedy inspired by corrupt zealots rather than a pan-Jewish plot to murder the Messiah.

“It’s vastly improved. I’ve been working with them on this for 23 years now, and they’ve made huge progress,” said Leonard Swidler, a professor of Catholic theology at Pennsylvania’s Temple University. “Academics can always argue about anything, but I see no substantial difficulties remaining at all.”

Jewish leaders were less effusive in their praise for the reworked version, the most substantial rewriting of the Oberammergau script in 140 years, but nonetheless lauded the revisions that stripped the presentation of its most offensive moments.

“The organizers are to be congratulated for their editorial efforts and constant cooperation,” said Rabbi Leon Klenicki, director of international affairs for the Anti-Defamation League, while noting that, in his opinion, a few points of contention remain.

The revisions to the epic theater presentation--which runs over six hours on stage and involves half the men, women and children in this town of 5,300--were the work of Otto Huber, a 53-year-old teacher who this season serves as the storyteller in the choir.

“Our idea was to make clear that the enemies of Jesus were not his enemies because they were Jewish but because they handled religion differently, that they represented a hierarchy that was attempting to profit from religion,” Huber said.

The Jewish faith and culture in which Christ lived is strongly emphasized in the new version, with followers referring to him as “Rabbi” and the Last Supper presented as a traditional Seder meal with unleavened bread and a menorah on the table.

But Huber and producer-director Christian Stueckl emphasized that their goal was not simply to present a historical or religious project but to stage a magnificent theatrical feat.

Indeed, the massive open-air theater resounds with choral splendor and orchestral fury, and the cast and tableaux meet the tall order of enthralling 4,700 spectators crammed into wooden stadium seats throughout the daylong performance. Judas Iscariot, whose motives for betraying Jesus are cast more as disaffection with his preaching than lust for the 30 pieces of silver, actually hangs himself on stage as the curtain of the seventh act closes, and the actors playing Christ--double cast, as are all speaking parts--must hang on the cross for nearly an hour. A third of the performance is choral or instrumental, often augmented by silent backdrops of motionless actors depicting scenes from the Hebrew Bible.

“It was simply breathtaking. I felt like I was in a place 2,000 years ago,” enthused Franz Willkop, a retired automotive executive from Munich taking in the Oberammergau spectacle for the first time in his 70-some years.

To evoke authenticity, the players of Oberammergau stop cutting their hair more than a year before a season and men nurture new beards. Scenes are powerful in their penetrating detail of everyday life in 1st century Jerusalem, from veiled female vendors leading goats into the temple marketplace to woven reed baskets holding live birds to incense wafting across the theater.

Outside the cavernous theater, the manner in which spectators are treated is an exercise in precision befitting the notoriously organized German people. Guides decked out in lederhosen direct each arriving car to the nearest open parking space, shuttle buses whisk along every few minutes, and wool lap rugs to ward off the brisk mountain breezes can be rented for 5 marks ($2.30) a day.

The play, staged five times weekly between Sunday’s premiere and Oct. 8, has been sold out for more than two years and will be seen by 500,000 spectators this season, said production spokeswoman Daniela Goldmann. U.S. tourists and travel agencies bought 60% of the advance tickets, although those group tours were in little evidence for the premiere, which was attended mostly by journalists and dignitaries.

Oberammergau’s once-a-decade emergence as the embodiment of European spirituality traces its roots to 1632, when the Black Plague spread by the Thirty Years War devastated this Alpine village and spurred local elders a year later to issue an edict that a Passion Play be performed by the whole population to ward off further deaths from the pestilence. The play in its various depictions has been performed roughly every 10 years since then, with a few extra seasons to make up for delays imposed by wars and political opponents and to mark jubilee events such as the 300th anniversary performance in 1934.

That presentation early in the Nazi era drew Hitler among its spectators, and the man who would become the evil architect of the Holocaust recognized in the play’s intrinsic anti-Semitic undertones a message of value in his perverse campaign. He praised the Oberammergau play as “a precious tool” for turning Christians against Jews.

This season’s modifications of a nearly 2,000-year-old story once again demonstrate how the renowned drama here remains, even after almost four centuries, a work in progress. Only last season, in 1990, were married women allowed to audition for the role of Mary or women older than 35 allowed anywhere on stage. This year, the cast includes a few Muslims from the local Turkish community, as players no longer must adhere to the Roman Catholic faith.

What may be the most enduring quality of Oberammergau’s 366-year-old staging of Christ’s suffering, crucifixion and resurrection is its power to hold this village in the grip of a Medieval mind-set while time marches on elsewhere. To be born in Oberammergau means lifelong obligation to community and conviction, compelling the citizenry to revolve life around the histrionics that have made this village a place of pilgrimage and its mission a form of moral servitude.

All cast members, down to the smallest barefoot child clad in ragged muslin, must be born in Oberammergau or have lived here at least 20 years. With 2,300 players, musicians and stagehands in the production, most locals first appear in the cast as children and grow into more significant roles over the decades.

Restaurateur Johann Schmitter has to turn his business over to employees two or three days a week to play trombone in the Passion Play orchestra--his fifth season with the theater he first appeared in as a child extra.

“It’s very stressful, trying to balance your work with the play, but for us it’s an honor to host, like the Olympics,” Schmitter said. “It’s especially exciting at the start of a season, but I have to admit it gets a little tiring after about three months.”