Yesterday, May 15th, the Oberammergau Passion Play opened its 2010 season. (See the NYT on it here.) Faithful to their vow, made in 1633 if they would be delivered from the plague, the villagers have faithfully performed the play every ten years. Out of 5,000 residents, this year 2,400 are involved in the production, 1,800 of them on the stage. The director since 1990 is native Christian Stückl, artistic director of Munich’s Volkstheater.
A passion play is a sort of devotion which grew out of the liturgy. In liturgical dramas of the 10th century, at the end of matins on Easter morning, three deacons played the role of the three Maries on. A short dialogue was sung (in Latin), beginning with “Whom do seek?” By the late Middle Ages, religious dramas had become long plays in vernacular, now performed in front of the church building or in a town square.
In an interview in yesterday’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung (“South German Newspaper”), Stückl explains why changes to the play have been made, over the objections of some religious traditionalists. Stückl notes that the changes were “completely approved by our theological advisor, Professor Ludwig Mödl, who appraised the text at the instruction of Munich Archbishop Marx, and with both churches, i.e., also the Protestant, in mind.” The first half hour of the play is entirely redone, with addition of scenes in which the teachings of Jesus are conveyed, above all, the Sermon on the Mount. “Traditionally, a Passion narrates only an account of his sufferings – right up to Mel Gibson, who took it to extremes in his film.”
In 1970, several Jewish organizations boycotted the Oberammergau play. Asked about the charges of anti-Semitism, Stückl explains that some changes were made in 1990 and 2000, but this time a more thorough examination of the text was done. “There are now many more scenes in which the historical situation of the Roman occupation is noted. We strongly emphasize the Jewish Jesus – ultimately, Jesus was a Jew. Thus, we show him with the Torah scroll, and at the Last Supper a menorah is placed on the table. … As Jesus breaks the bread, he speaks the blessing in Hebrew. 400 Oberammergauers sing the Schma Israel, the central confession of faith of the Jews.”
Stückl states, “Jesus was a Jew, that is a historical fact. He was circumcised like any other Jewish boy. … After his death, the later Christians were a sort of Jewish sect. Peter felt himself still obligated to all of Judaism, but Paul, the missionary apostle, carried the teaching out into the world. And then, in the 3rd [sic] century, Constantine’s mother, holy Helena, more or less convinced her son, the emperor in Rome, to make this faith the Roman faith. Suddenly it was no longer a Jewish faith, but a Roman state religion. And in the course of this, Pilate in the documents was washed pure of any fault. … At the moment that Christianity became a state religion, Jesus was made ever more into the Son of God and the Jews were made into ‘God’s murderer.’”
Stückl notes that Hitler extolled the Passion Play in 1934. It was useful to his campaign to show that the Jews are dangerous, but the Roman, Pilate, acted nobly. This was part of a long history of anti-Semitic passion plays. In the Baroque era there were 450 such passion plays. In the 12th-13th century in Frankfurt, pogroms broke out after passion plays. The play was a means of propaganda. The people left the play shouting “The Jews murdered our Savior.”
Since the 2000 Oberammergau play, the line from Matthew’s Gospel, “His blood be upon us and on our children,” has been stricken from the play. Stückl explains why the line had been retained in 1990: “Because of our theological advisor then, Professor Pesch, I had to retain the line. He insisted on it because it is a central statement of the Gospel and we can’t simply allow others to dictate that we strike central passages. Against this I repeatedly said, Excuse me, but we are presenting in any case a bible potpourri. We take out of all four gospels what we need for the play, so certainly we can eliminate something.”
The line “Ecco homo” (“Behold the man”), which Pilate says to the suffering Jesus, was stricken from the 2000 production. It was seen as an example of the praiseworthy compassion of Pilate, and thus part of the agenda to excuse Pilate and blame the Jews. But for the 2010 play the line reappears, now in different form. The context is made clearer that Jesus made himself King of the Jews, which was an act of high treason against Roman rule. Now Pilate says the line in a mocking, deriding tone. The meaning is that this is the sorry end of the one who rose up, as King of the Jews, against the Roman state. “In my view, now the line works,” says Stückl.
Some had wanted Stückl to eliminate the cry of the Jewish masses “Crucify him!” Stückl explains, “The scene is a difficult one. But I can neither eliminate it nor reduce it to only 20 people. As director, one is obligated to create a role for everyone from the town who wishes to participate. No one can be rejected. This time I had 300 more than ten years ago. This is the only large, popular scene. I ended up with 800 people on the stage.” (I’m sure readers of this blog will think of similar discussions around the practice, which one hopes is dying out, of having the congregation shout “Crucify him” during the Passion reading of Holy Week.)
The current crisis of the Catholic Church is much discussed these days in Bavaria, the homeland of Pope Benedict. The newspaper posed this question: “The Catholic Church finds itself in one of its worst crises since a long time. The faithful are leaving the church in droves. Even apart from this, we live in an increasingly nonreligious world, at least in the West. Haven’t passion plays outlived their usefulness?”
Stückl replies: “One of our angel characters, a quite shy 17-year-old boy, traveled with us to Israel in the preparation stage. It took three days before he thawed out, and then he never stopped asking questions. My point is, the distance from the Church is growing, but still, people seek after something like God, after a religious and ethical foothold to find meaning. This is not disappearing. As one can read amply in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus had enormous problems with the Temple hierarchy. And it is precisely this which the papacy has reinstituted. Ultimately, we must refocus on Jesus and his teachings, and then things will get interesting.”
UPDATE 5-19: Here is an AP story which fills in some interesting aspects of the story.
Translation of selected excerpts of the interview by awr.
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