HOW LUSTY GREEK GODS GAVE US THE PASSION PLAY
One of the big ironies of the lockdown is the cancellation of the ten-yearly Oberammergau passion play, due to have been held in May. The irony is that the play was specifically inaugurated in 1633 as part of a vow taken by the citizens of the German town in response to a plague epidemic that had killed thousands the previous year. From the time the Oberammergau production was put on, nobody died from the plague, although many villagers showed signs of it.
The coronavirus this year,
‘has made it impossible to stage the play without endangering the performers and the guests.’ And that’s a lot of performers and guests; almost 2,500 locals involved in acting and staging the play, a possible 400,000 visitors and the income they could bring.
In its 400-year history, it has rarely been cancelled. Over the years the play has often had to be reshaped and re-written to avoid ‘improprieties’ and accusations of anti-semitism. It didn’t help that Hitler praised it in the 1930s.
But early Church authorities were never as enthusiastic about theatrical performances as they were about sacred music. Greek drama, in particular, was always too closely tied to those pagan gods with their dubious behaviour and low moral standards.
Greek productions in the great amphitheatres were often dedicated to that belligerent man-god Dionysus, patron of pleasure, wine, festivity, drunks and hedonists in general. The problem was that some of that frenzy was being carried over into drama performed by Christians.
As a result, the early Church eventually banned ‘dancing and mysteries performed by men and women according to ancient customs alien to Christian life,’ and even added for wine-makers, that ‘no one is to shout the abominable name of Dionysus while treading grapes.’
There were, of course, the usual options for the Church: ban theatricals, restrain them or take them over, as happened with many pagan festivals. And taking them over was simpler and more successful.
One extraordinary takeover from the pagan Greeks was the Byzantine play Christos Paschon (The Passion of Christ). Neither the date it was written, nor the writer’s name is known for certain; it has been tentatively dated to the fifth century. A great deal of the actual text is taken, with some alterations, from
‘No-one is to shout the name of Dionysus while treading grapes’
several plays by Euripides, including The Bacchae, about Dionysus. In The Bacchae, Dionysus is a bloodthirsty avenger who has the king of Thebes torn to pieces by his rampaging women followers.
But Christos Paschon turns the play into a Christian tragedy, giving speeches from the suffering mothers in the Greek plays to Mary the mother of Jesus, so that the crucifixion and suffering of Christ are seen through her eyes.
Christos Paschon also features Mary Magdalene, St John and Pilate; it portrays Christ being taken from the cross and placed in the tomb, converting the original work into a most unlikely Christian Passion play.