German villagers re-enact Christ’s passion in 400-year-old tradition

Once-a-decade passion play opening

OBERAMMERGAU, Germany — Time advances slowly in this Alpine village, measured in decade-long spans between performances of Oberammergau’s nearly 400-year-old enactment of the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Changes to the ritual, started in 1633 as a promise to God by the village’s Roman Catholic populace in exchange for calling off the plague, are always hotly debated.

In this year’s edition, director Christian Stueckl — who normally directs at Munich’s Volkstheater — has altered the script, staging and lighting of his third Oberammergau Passion Play to make it a highly political and polished retelling of Jesus’ final days.

In 2000, he worked with Jewish groups to overhaul the script to remove anti-Semitic overtones. The 48-year-old Stueckl has pushed this year’s version a step further, highlighting the Jews’ oppression by the Romans, making Pontius Pilate a more provocative character, and clearly showing Jesus’ Jewish roots.

“Jesus understands himself completely as a Jew. He was never baptized, he never had a First Communion, but he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at 12 and died as a Jew on the cross,” said Stueckl. “Increasing awareness of this is very important to me.”

Members of the American Jewish Committee, based in New York, as well as other scholars worked with Stueckl in reworking the script for the 2000 and 2010 performances.

In a detailed report published last week, the AJC praised the latest production for specific scenes showing Jesus’ life as a Jew, but called for more accurate depictions of Jews, Old Testament scenes and Caiaphas — the Jewish high priest whose role in Jesus’ crucifixion has long been debated by Jews and Christians.

“When one leaves the play, one feels that the priests in general, Caiaphas the high priest in particular, and by implication the Jews of that time are primarily responsible for the death of Jesus,” said Rabbi Noam Marans, Associate Director for Interreligious and Intergroup Relations of the AJC and a scholar of passion plays.

“Notwithstanding the very good intentions of Christian Stueckl and others, the 2010 version falls short in this very critical regard,” said Marans, who led a group of young American Jews to Oberammergau.

Stueckl acknowledged that balancing the traditional views of his deeply Catholic home village with those of Jewish scholars is not always easy.

“Whether they will ever be completely pleased is the question,” Stueckl said of the AJC. “But they have noticed that at least we are making an effort.”

In another deviation, this year’s production starts in the afternoon, runs for three hours and resumes for the final two hours after an extended dinner break, with the crucifixion taking place in the partially outdoor theater as darkness descends on the Alpine valley.

For all the changes, the 41st production remains a tradition handed down through generations that involves some 2,400 villagers — half the population — recounting a tale of life and death that captivates spectators even though they know from the start how it will end.

“I was spellbound,” said Christine Lee, a recent Oberammergau resident who received free tickets to a dress rehearsal. She was not eligible to take part in the play because that is limited to those who were born in Oberammergau or have been permanent residents for 20 years.

“I was thinking that I wouldn’t enjoy it because it is in German, but the fact that it was all in German didn’t make any difference at all,” said Lee, who comes from England.

For many of the participants, who dedicate nearly a year of their lives to preparing for the 102 performances, the play is a family tradition.

“We are four generations taking part this year,” said Karl Fuehrler, 78, who is playing Simon of Bethany in this year’s performance, his seventh. His daughter, granddaughter and great-grandson, who turns two in July are all among 900 villagers who take the stage in the opening scene.

Also this year, for the first time, two Oberammergau residents of Turkish descent are taking part, as part of the “Volk” or the people of Jerusalem, hundreds of whom appear on stage at a time.

Rules set down for the play dictate that any longterm resident seeking a role be allowed to partake, with several hundred appearing on stage as members of the general populace.

Andreas Richter, one of two men who play the role of Jesus, has taken part since 1980. He said despite all of the time he has spent preparing for and learning the leading role, it still takes time to grow into it.

When other actors who have played Jesus in past performances are nearby when the donkey is brought out to carry Christ into Jerusalem, his instinct is still to move aside and tell them, “you get on.”

“You don’t leave the (previous) roles that easily,” Richter said. “They stay with you for the next 10 years.”