On hold: the play born of adversity

The Bavarian town of Oberammergau has had to postpone its unique celebration of Christ, says Chris Leadbeater

The coronavirus pandemic has cut a swathe through the cultural and sporting calendar for the next few months. Glastonbury has been postponed. The Euro 2020 football championship and the Tokyo Olympics too. But if there is one event – pulled from the schedule last week – that will view the ongoing crisis with a particular sense of clarity, it is the collision of religion and drama that was due to return to the stage in Bavaria on May 16. The Oberammergau Passion Play has been here before.

It is now almost four centuries since a small town that – in the wider context of Germany – is pretty but unremarkable, stood tall in the face of disease and panic, and made a promise that would come to define its future. In March 1633, the invisible threat was the bubonic plague, which had begun ravaging Italy in 1629, was making its way into the wooded slopes and valleys on the other side of the Alps. Terrified of the infection’s march, the residents of Oberammergau offered a vow to God – that, were they spared, they would perform a play, recalling the life and death of Jesus, in thanks. Not only that, they would produce it again, every 10 years, in perpetuity.

The pact bore fruit. Whether you see it as the coincidental consequence of random circumstance, or divine influence, the plague largely (though not entirely) skirted the area – and the villagers kept their word. The first play went ahead in 1634, in the churchyard, alongside the graves of those who had died. It soon became established convention for the Passion Play to take place in front of visitors from surrounding regions, in the summer months of every year ending in a zero. All this time later, here we are in March 2020, with epidemic again a flame of our fears, and Oberammergau – until last week – preparing to take its devout and determined stand.

The latest season – which had been due to run from mid-May until Oct 4 – will now commence on May 21 2022. But if there is something curiously apt about this postponement, then it is also highly unusual. Only three times in the history of the Oberammergau Passion Play has it failed to tread the boards in its appointed year. On two of those occasions, there was an obvious explanation – the 1940 incarnation was cancelled as the Second World War raged; in 1920, in a Europe still shaking from the First World War, it was delayed until 1922. Only in 1770 did the event fall to anything less destructive than a global conflict – a ban on such productions laid down by Maximilian III Joseph, the then-Duke of Bavaria. That the timeline should be ruptured now is an indication that these are extraordinary times in which we are currently existing.

Even on a visit to Oberammergau, you can easily fail to appreciate its special story. It sits on Germany’s southern edge, where Bavaria begins to give way to Austria – less than 20 miles from the border. Even if you head in from Munich – 55 miles to the northeast – there is little to inform you that you are making an approach. True, the

The town is close to the Alps, main; the last enactment of the famous Oberammergau Passion Play was in 2010, below land starts to slant upwards – but even then you might fail to spot the signposts for Kolbensattel, the tiny ski resort on the town’s western outskirts. Only once you pull up outside the Passionstheater on Othmar-WeisStrasse – having trundled over the polite flow of the River Ammer, and through smart but unremarkable residential streets – do you start to realise where you are.

The theatre, of course, is the 17th century’s sole concession to modernity. The graveyard swiftly became too small to contain the many prayer-reciting pilgrims – hopeful that some of the town’s salvation stardust might rub off on their shoulders – who flocked in to watch the play as the decades passed. The first permanent stage was built in 1815; a second, larger structure sprang up in the present-day location in 1830. Work on a proper theatre, with a roof and seats, began in 1890. It has been expanded and accessorised in the 130 years that have followed, but the complex that greets visitors in the 21st century is faithful to that 19th century footprint – just bigger. It now accommodates 4,700 spectators.

In some ways, the spectacle has also changed. It has had to. As the 20th century ebbed on, accusations of anti-Semitism became louder. Concerns focused on the play’s depiction of the authorities in Jerusalem – an “artistic treatment” that veered deep into uncomfortable territory. The stain of the 1934 production – a special 300th

anniversary staging, encouraged by the new Nazi regime, and attended by Hitler – also needed to be cleansed. But, in recent years, Oberammergau has worked with Jewish groups to realign the script. Jesus’s own Jewish faith is now emphasised – and when he blesses those at the Last Supper, the actor in the leading role does so in Hebrew.

In other ways, however, the Passion Play has altered little since 1634. It still gazes at Jesus’s final week and his steps towards crucifixion, while injecting key passages from the Old Testament into this well-known biblical narrative. It also asks commitment and patience of its audience. In the past, the running time was seven hours. By 2010, this had been trimmed to five, with the production running from 2.30pm to 10pm (including a meal break). Hard work – yet those on stage are not big stars; rather local actors, based in the town, who spend up to a year preparing to walk in their predecessors’ sandal marks (villager Frederik Mayet, who will play Jesus in 2022, appeared in the 2000 and 2010 productions in less pivotal parts). English translations of the text are available, but the vast majority of the lines are in German.

None of this discourages the hundreds of thousands of travellers who pour into the town during Passion Play season, and with five performances offered a week (every day except Monday and Wednesday) across the course of almost five months, there is more than ample opportunity to join them. The silver lining to the postponement, perhaps, is that it will allow interested parties who hadn’t realised Oberammergau’s year was again upon us to journey to southern Germany, where the 2022 play is sure to have an added poignancy.