Article: The Theatre Backpacker (www.theatreartlife.com)
OBERAMMERGAU PASSIONSSPIELE: EXPLORING A SACRED THEATRE
By Jack Paterson | Part 8 of 10
Originally published January 31, 2024 at www.theatreartlife.com
Original article link: Exploring a Sacred Theatre – Part 8 (theatreartlife.com)
OBSERVING REHEARSALS – DAY 3 : HUMAN STORIES
Date: April 2022
Location: Oberammergau, Germany
Activity: Rehearsals
6 PM. There is no birdsong heard in the venue today, just the sound of power tools outside the venue as the Bavarian beer tents are built. After a 2-year hiatus, the production is rapidly approaching opening.
Perhaps my favourite thing has become watching Christian casually walk from person to person engaging them in conversation as rehearsal begins.
An understated “um..er..” and a cough signals the beginning of rehearsal and brings 60 people in a semi circle around him. He speaks calmly, clearly. The first mission of the evening is choir placement. Today the choir seems to include a few more teenagers and a young mother has brought her 4 year old son.
Again, he goes from person to person, pointing to the floor, moving people with gentle pushes and arm tugs speaking all the while. Who can go here? A hand shoots up and a woman runs over.
Oberammergau Passion Play 2022: Rehearsals – Photo Jack Paterson
7 PM. The power tools have died down and a dark blue has returned to the sky framing the set. The birds in the rafters once again begin to chatter to each other and the stage is once again full of several hundred people.
The Roman commander’s horse is requiring attention. He sits astride it at centre stage. The horse is nervous; it keeps backing up and small groups of villagers behind it dart for safer territory with combined expressions of bemusement and alarm on their faces. The trainer, standing by its side, rubs its neck, whispers, and gives it a push with his hip.
A few small boys enter from stage left. They shout something and point back in the direction they came from, and Jesus enters surrounded by a mob and carrying a large wooden cross. He collapses centre stage. 2 men break from the masses and run forward to help him lift the cross.
Even in their civvies and winter gear, I can easily feel the impact of this scene.
The scene is worked, more details added, and once the horse has calmed down again we return to ones. This time with the second set of lead actors.
Oberammergau Passion Play 2022: The Way of the Cross – Photo Birgit Gudjonsdottir
9 PM.
The armies of legionnaires and the people of Jerusalem are sent home and a dozen or so actors remain. The last hour of the night rehearsal is spent figuring out how to get Jesus down from the cross. This is a group effort, sculpted moment by moment around the realities of the rigging, actor safety, and the importance of each moment of the story.
Although this sequence has been done many times before – this is the director’s fourth time – there is no indication that this is anything but new to the people doing it.
Oberammergau Passion play 2022: Rehearsals – Photo Jack Paterson
There is something very German in the aesthetic. Despite the pageantry, ritual, and scale of this project, this is a story about human beings. Human beings are imperfect, messy, and clumsy – we struggle, we make mistakes, and there is something humanly imperfect in how this man is taken down from the cross. Despite the scope of this project, this is not the spectacle of a large-scale Broadway or West End production, but the awkwardness of human beings faced with the death of a loved one, the handling of a body for the first time.
Stückl crouches down beside Mary as she holds her dead son her arms, listening to her, guiding her, moment by moment.
In his interview with A. Faiz (Broadview), Schtuck says “ Bach wrote the St. Matthew Passion — he told the story with music. I tell this story with theatre. Theatre has to be open. We don’t have dogma in theatre…if I can bring a real human being on stage, then that is enough for me.”
Oberammergau Passion Play 2022 – Photo Gabriela Neeb
Links & Resources:
How Hitler’s Favorite Passion Play Lost Its Anti-Semitism by A.J. Goldman (The Atlantic, August 4, 2022)
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/08/oberammergau-passion-play-german-jewish-history/671026/
Meet the director removing anti-Semitism from Oberammergau’s famous Passion play by Andrew Faiz (Broadview Magazine, March 23, 2021)
https://broadview.org/oberammergau-passion-play/
Oberaumagau Passionsspeile:
https://www.passionsspiele-oberammergau.de/en/home
Oberammergau Passion Play Director Christian Stückl Receives American Jewish Committee Isaiah Award (AJC News, August 10, 2022)
https://www.ajc.org/news/oberammergau-passion-play-director-christian-stuckl-receives-american-jewish-committee-isaiah
Images:
1. Oberammergau Passion Play 2022: Crucifixion – Photo Arno Declair
2. Oberammergau Passion Play 2022: Rehearsals – Photo by Jack Paterson
3. Oberammergau Passion Play 2022: The Way of the Cross – Photo Birgit Gudjonsdottir
4. Oberammergau Passion play 2022: Rehearsals – Photo by Jack Paterson
5. Oberammergau Passion Play 2022 – Photo Gabriela Neeb
Continue Reading The Theatre Backpacker
OBERAMMERGAU PASSIONSSPIELE: EXPLORING A SACRED THEATRE
PROLOGUE or BACK ON THE ROAD (Part 1)
Perhaps because I’m watching a known innovator who values the traditional, sacred, and the new, it seems right to write about another ritual, and another village far from the Balinese sun.
OBERAMMERGAU (Part 2)
The Oberammergau Passionsspiele has been performed every 10 years since 1634. The earliest continuous survivor of the age of Christian religions drama, it’s one of the longest running western performing arts traditions.
OBSERVING REHEARSALS - DAY 1 (Part 3)
The first performance of the Passionsspiele in 1634 was performed on a simple wooden construction at the parish church cemetery over the fresh graves of plague victims.
EXPLORING OBERAMMERGAU (Part 4)
The passionsspiechele echoes through every aspect of Oberammergau. I walk down streets with names like “the kingdom of heaven” or named after past writers and composers of the play.
MUSIC AND TABLEAUX VIVANT (Part 5)
To maintain the unique traditional skill sets needed for the music, the village has multiple choirs and orchestras operating throughout the 10 year gaps between productions.
EVOLVING TO MEET THE TIMES (Part 6)
Widely considered the best part, this year Judas is played this year by 22-year-old actor Cengiz Görür.
FACING THE PAST (Part 7)
With the challenging history of passion plays and the contemporary history of the region, Oberammergau doesn’t hide from its past. Nor does it hide from its responsibilities.
HUMAN STORIES (Part 8)
There is something very German in the aesthetic. Despite the pageantry, ritual, and scale of this project, this is a story about human beings.
LESSONS & REFLECTIONS (Part 9)
In the past , Passion Plays were the few opportunities for local people to engage with their spiritual and religious stories in their own voices.
EPILOGUE (Part 10)
For tradition to survive, it must stay true to its purpose but also evolve to meet the needs of the people and the time