Oberammagau Passion Play 2022

 

 

Visiting the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau is, I should imagine, on numerous people’s bucket lists. I have wanted to see the production since I first read of the play and the vow that inspired it in my teens. The play has been performed at (usually) ten year intervals since 1634; the performance now habitually falls on years ending in 0, although the 2020 production has been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Three years after I’d booked a trip to see it, I witnessed the play on Thursday 14 July, 2022. The performance takes place in an enormous auditorium seating just short of 5000 people, with the audience covered but the stage open to the sky (with the Alps in the background). The cast, musicians, singers and crew are entirely drawn from the village, and in production years the performances last from May to early October. A good short read about the play is A Pilgrim's Guide to Oberammergau and its Passion Play by Raymond Goodburn (Pilgrim Book Services, 2019) which provides a history of the play and an account of the logistics of the production.

 

The history of the play is not without its controversies, most specifically the virulent anti-Semitism in the text, which caused a certain audience member named Adolf Hitler to proclaim that the play’s continued production was vital, as it "revealed the muck and mire of Jewry." The same text that Hitler witnessed continued in performance until the first production of the 21^st century, in 2000. The play as now performed is mostly by director Christian Stückl, freely adapted from medieval Mystery Play material and subsequent 19^th Century revisions by Othmar Weis and J. A. Daisenberger. The Stückl play is a wordy and theologically dense piece which dramatises the Passion story as one of inter-faith conflict, with Jesus the reforming Jew coming into conflict with the ritualistic, empty and hypocritical state of his Jewish religion as propagated by the High Priest Caiaphas and his allies in the Sanhedrin. There are several scenes which almost entirely consist of arguments between the conservative faction, led by Caiaphas, and the supporters of Jesus, led by Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. Given that the play is performed in German and without any English surtitles, this is a challenging watch for a non-German speaker (you can follow the text in a printed booklet), but even for those fluent in German, the play offers no concessions to contemporary dramaturgy – it reminds me most strongly of 18^th and 19^th century writers such as Schiller, Shaw (albeit without the humour), or the Ibsen of Emperor and Galilean. Despite this tendency to verbosity, the play communicates most effectively through visual statements – we see Jesus the servant of his fellows washing their feet, and Caiaphas being borne on a throne by servants. Their contrasting attitudes to leadership and serving their communities is thus simply and eloquently staged.

 

The director states in the programme that we can no longer rely on audiences to be familiar with the teachings of Jesus (although this presupposes a younger audience than was in evidence at the performance I attended). Despite beginning with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey to adoring crowds, much of the first part of the five hour play is taken by Jesus repeating elements of his sermons and disputations from earlier episodes in the gospel (including the prevented stoning of the woman taken in adultery and the Magdalene bathing him with expensive balm). This Jesus is strongly on the side of social justice, pacifism, mutual love and respect. His criticisms of the High Priest and his cronies are based in their failure to help the people or offer good role models. There is some ambiguity in the motivations of Caiaphas and his associates: they claim that they are preventing Jesus from stirring up social unrest and are therefore protecting the people from Roman retaliatory violence (we see Pilate warning them re Jesus), yet they seem personally stung by Jesus critique of them, and therefore his arrest and persecution is an act of spiteful revenge. The portrait of the anti-Jesus majority of the Sanhedrin is carefully handled, to prevent any descent into the kind of medieval caricatures that Durer depicted so viscerally in his Jesus Among the Doctors (1506). Nevertheless, Annas and others are pretty repellent and unforgiving characters. It is clear that Stückl keeps emphasising Jesus and his companion’s Jewishness as a counterbalance; the infamous blood curse – traditionally shouted as the crowd is baying for the release Barabbas and the crucifixion of Christ – is excised, and it’s clear that there is a large Jewish minority in the crowd that believes Jesus to be innocent and wants him freed. Unfortunately, the bad elements outnumber the decent, and who could deny the simple truth of this ever-recurring tendency of the honest to be outnumbered in the popular voice by the barbarous. In the same way, the argument between a formal ritualisation of religion/conviction in the public performance of virtue by a wealthy elite, and the interiorisation of godliness/goodness by those with less power, which manifests in works of empathy and charity, is an eternally reoccurring tendency, occurring today for people of all creeds and nations, those with formal religions or those with ideologies which have replaced religion in the public sphere of our contemporary societies.

 

If Caiaphas and his crew are dubious in their motivations, the play portrays Judas as much more conflicted. He spends the early part of the play arguing with Jesus about the best way to propagate the message and the efficacy of armed rebellion. His betrayal of Jesus is shown to be based in a naïve belief that if he brings Caiaphas and Jesus together for a chat, Jesus may bring the sceptics in the Sanhedrin around. Of course, he soon discovers that Caiaphas has no interest in listening and is actively plotting Jesus’ death. This sends Judas into a spiral of self-recrimination and despair, disgusted that the Sanhedrin has given him money for his traitorous kiss, and unable to turn back time or persuade the priests to release Jesus. Judas’ realisation of what he has done and his inability to forgive himself for it is dramatized in a sequence of scenes alongside Peter’s three denials. The contrast between Judas committing suicide because he cannot forgive himself and Peter’s accepting that Jesus has forgiven him for his weakness is emphasised in a strong piece of dramatic structuring. Judas and Peter’s betrayals are of a type together, yet one finds forgiveness and the other cannot.

 

Because Jesus repeats the greatest hits of His ministry in the first part, He has rather more dialogue than He otherwise might in a Passion. There’s also a certain amount of character development – He realises in an early scene that He is going to die in Jerusalem, and confronts the full horror of it in His Gethsemane prayer. In the prayer, He acknowledges that His fate was written before the world began; He is comforted in Gethsemane by the ministrations of an angel (portrayed as a young man without any supernatural attributes). In this way, we feel Jesus’s story as both a very human one – He is assenting to giving up His life – but also the story of a being who is more than human. He clearly asserts to Caiaphas that He is the Messiah, but Nicodemus interprets His supposed blasphemies about being the Son of God by reminding the accusers that all of them refer to God as a father. For me, the story of someone who makes the monumental decision to undergo trial and death, then who finds some solidity within Himself to bear the agony, was the strongest element of the play. I wondered what was going on in His mind as he went through the trials and the Stations of the Cross; as the play offered no interior dialogues for Jesus here, we are left to imagine.

 

The play’s linear narrative – from the entry into Jerusalem to the discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene – is punctuated by oratorio-like musical interludes (reminiscent of Bach’s Passions), written in the nineteenth century by Rochus Dedler and revised a number of times since. These are beautiful and powerfully performed by the chorus and soloists; the soprano solo before the Gethsemane scene is particularly exquisite. The hybrid of dramatic play and oratorio is an unusual form, for which I cannot think of any equivalent. The oratorio sections also feature numerous tableaux of Old Testament episodes – the expulsion from Eden, Job mocked, the parting of the red sea, Abraham and Isaac, the raising of the brazen serpent – which speak in relation to the following Passion sequence of scenes. In this way, the play finds a theatrical equivalent to the typographical elements of the Gospels – as if Jesus’s Passion were being underlined as a version of numerous Jewish myths, their ultimate expression in time and space and history. A real, historical man consciously takes upon Himself the mantle of the legend. 

 

The stage is made up of classical columns, emphasising that the life and death of Jesus took place within the setting of classical antiquity, yet also offered a challenge to those who build the columns and pediments, as well as those who collaborate or make deals with the tyrants. It feels significant that the top of the stage was open to the sky – offering a metaphorical escape. We never see the risen Jesus, but the missing roof proposes a possibility.

 

There’s a lot to consider in the village’s vow to continually perform this man’s trial and death. It is the ultimate example of community theatre – about 2500 of the village’s 5000 inhabitants are involved. The production is an enormous spectacle – the entry into Jerusalem, the driving of the merchants from the temple, the crowd crying for the release of Barabbas, the crucifixion are all immense scenes, stretching across the stage as a living widescreen experience. We chatted to a few of the actors – our waiter in the inn before the play was a performer, and we met Judas, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea and Sanhedrin lawyer Nathaniel as they lounged on the steps outside the theatre at the break. The standard of performance is very high and the concentration is spellbindingly held; the phenomenon gives the lie to the false dichotomy of the amateur and professional. In this way, it is a dramatization of a central tenet of the Gospel – that we all carry a potential within us to present the image of God…

 

 

An Encounter with a Prophet at Snorrastofa

On holiday in Iceland, and using it as an opportunity to finally read The Prose Edda, I noticed that there was a cultural and medieval centre called Snorrastofa, based around its author/compiler Snorri Sturluson at his former homestead at Reykholt. My partner, a friend and I drove there from Reykavik. Our encounter with the local Lutheran priest Geir Waage, an expert on Snorri and Icelandic history, is worth recording.

The woman staffing the centre could not have been friendlier, so we were already in good spirits when we entered the small exhibition telling the story of Snorri's life and times. As we went round, an elderly priest emerged from a room at the side of the exhibition hall. Peaking in the room later, it seemed to be a combination of study and sacristy; the priest is based at the small church a stone's throw away from the centre. The priest, whom I later learned is named Waage, emerged from this room and began speaking to us of the nursery rhyme London Bridge is Falling Down. He wondered if we, as Englishmen, knew all of the verses of the song, and of its origin. As per most of the English he encountered, we were in the dark. He theorized that its origins are in the demolition of the bridge by Viking invaders in the early years of the 11th century AD. He said that this event was told in Snorri's Heimskringla, a chronicle of the Kings of Norway. This led to a long discourse on the Chronicle. It was written in Old Norse, which was no longer the vernacular within a couple of hundred years of the composition. Geir mused on how a society which loses its language loses its roots, its culture, and becomes "stupid." He told of how the book was translated from the 16th century onward, and influenced various Nationalist movements and Northern expansionist escapades. One was never quite sure how much Waage approved on this use of the Chronicle, but he was sure of its power. He pointed to various editions and described them as "more dangerous than gunpowder." We agreed that ideas can have huge effects, as witnessed by the current Brexit events in the UK.

Waage pointed to a medieval map of the Northern territories, and to a small town which might have been Molde. He said that many Icelanders could trace their lineage back to that town, as can many of history's movers and shakers. "Your Elizabeth," he cried, "is a descendant of a fat viking from there, called Rollo. He could not sit on a horse and had to be wheeled around in a cart." Rollo invaded Normandy, and his line led to William the Conqueror, and so to the current Royal House of Windsor. Waage made much mention of genealogy, of bloodlines, of where ancestry can be traced. He spoke of the medieval slave trade and of how Norse blood was mixed through it with Celts, Asians, and Africans. He is fascinated by the ways in which genetics, and genetic defects, can help with genealogy.

Waage is a man with a full panoply of theatrical props. He carries a wooden walking stick, with which he liberally points and gesticulates. At one point in his discourse, he laid aside the stick and took out a small horn with a stopper top. He proceeded to lay a line of snuff as black and fine as dry lava across the back of his hand, and hoovered it in one swift sniff. Later, when we met him again near Snorri's grave, he was carrying a handful of Rosemary.

Across the grave, he told us the story of Snorri's end. Hiding in a cellar, hunted by opposing forces in the contemporary civil war, Snorri was killed by a reign of blows by certain kinsmen. His adopted son was blinded and castrated by his brothers a few months later. Waage noted how many of the sagas of those times are plundered by the writers of Game of Thrones. He emphasized the bloodthirsty cruelty of that civil war, and how it was caused by a concentration of power and money in a few hands. Earlier, he had blamed the delay in building a museum to house the Icelandic sagas on the concentration of money in the hands of a few. He condemned the Iceland of now as wealthy but corrupt, and with great inequality. He predicted that we would see civil war in Europe in our time, given the widespread concentration of money in the hands of the few. This felt like the climax of his talk, after which he left us to look at the remains of the cellar in which Snorri was killed.

Waage's prediction has rung in my ears ever since, as there's something about the prophecies of a man so steeped in history, lore, and the study of laws. He described the Sagas as tales of men who transgress the Law, and so bring ruin on themselves and others. Waage is the nearest to an Old Testament prophet I have ever personally encountered, and it's funny how just a few minutes in such a person's company can "seem like a couple of months".

                                         Geir Waage at Snorri's grave.

Bob Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall

I went to see Bob Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall, the first of what was for him a three night stretch and his first time at the venue since the chaos tour of 1966. My friend and I walked into the venue at 7:30pm and the speakers were already announcing that he was coming on stage in 5 minutes. So, a few minutes after we took our stalls seats, on Dylan was - like another world appearing in this one and it's an odd adjustment to make, because it's Dylan and there's so much history and, if you're a devoted follower of Bob (I confess I am) a heap of an intensely personal relationship with the artist's work. It doesn't make sense coming from work and the tube and the pub and the street and seeing him, this glorious anomaly, up there sharing time and space with me.

He seems to know this, as the first few songs establish the reminder of where you are - in his world - from the off. He's in the Albert Hall for the first time since he was being booed in the UK and he begins with "I used to care but things have changed". It's not the greatest version of the song he's ever played (although it doesn't slack) but the chorus reinforces who he is, what he's done, what this place means, where we've all gone in the meantime. The second number She Belongs to Me pulls us solidly into the whole strange mystery of what he does - it can't be put into any other words or context than what we have here in our ears and eyes; the song admits that the singer doesn't know what this muse that sings to and through him is but it's happening and he's opening the door to it again. By the time he's singing Beyond Here Lies Nothing, he's seduced me into thinking "well, he's right - what is there outside this world that gets created when he sings this stuff" - he's singing for his audience and tempting us to see that
"I love you pretty baby
You're the only love I've ever known
Just as long as you stay with me
The whole world is my throne"
And just as if he's casting a spell which seems to be just about Bob Dylan, one performer and the audience he's wooed and won the gate fully opens and there's an entry point here to the truth that beyond what any of us create from our sharing our love, there's nothing.

The past few times I've seen him I've been struck by how, physically, Bob Dylan on stage is this compendium of weird gestures and stances. There are these odd ways of standing, these strange and ersatz gesticulations, this way of playing the audience and holding the mic stand which brings to mind a kaleidoscope giving glimpses of lounge singers, minstrels, vaudevillians, Vegas showmen, silent film clowns, starlets, melodrama hams, 50s pop stars - all these crazy collective memories of what a popular performer does on a stage. It's like he's so totally performing for us that he's a old time performer - he can't be described of doing anything natural - and so this ironizes the whole performance of Bob Dylan and we're watching a legend consciously perform as an old pro. Coming from anyone else, the gestures and stances might be cod or clichéd or dated but coming from Dylan they're done with a wink, a sense of "aw, shucks, y'know how important I am and and you're going to let me get away with this." Dylan has always been sophisticated theatre games.

He plays a fair bit of piano (zero guitar, which is sometimes on/sometimes off these days - is it a choice or is the arthritis playing up?). Watching him at the old Johanna, I had this vision of how this is that kid from Duluth, Bobby Zimmerman, who wanted to be Little Richard and did a spell on the keyboards with Bobby Vee's touring band way back in the late 1950s under the name Elston Gunnn. Zimmerman, Gunnn, Dylan, Blind Boy Grunt - all these ghosts playing in that shell up there on stage and brought to life. A ghost machine that can scare you it'll psychotically Pay in Blood, make you swoon with over some gorgeous Simple Twist of Fate, remind your Forgetful Heart of how you used to be and lull you into a false sense of things having become a too diluted Spirit on the Water before the the mask is changed again you realise that that this is just another tease:
"You think I'm over the hill
You think I'm past my prime
Let me see what you got
We can have a whoppin' good time."

Near the end of the set - which was pretty heavily drawn from recent material with only two 60s, two 70s, one 80s number and the rest from the last decade and a half, to emphasis that this is most definitely not nostalgia - the man who'd begun by wooing us and reminding us of our affair with him performs a killer version of the recent Long and Wasted Years; it's a bitter lament of a man who has some time ago fallen out of love with his partner and reflects on the bad time they've for quite some time together through their life (and now it's, it is hinted, the Apocalypse). Dylan performs this centre stage, the giant organ of the Albert Hall lit ostentatiously above him; the sound is 50s dragged up like glam and the drum punch stops to the song crack the mind before we're dragged out of each halt by the winding guitar. Dylan barks the lyrics at us and jolts as if he's a Jerry Lee Lewis zombie electronically revivified. At the close, he snarls "so much for these long and wasted years." The song stops and the concert comes to its formal end. He's gone from the stage and the effect is shocking - as if he's got us here, seduced us, played with us and then suddenly turned on us, broke up with us and finally walked out. It's daring and thrilling and not something you expect from someone who, if he were anyone else of a similar stature, would be either preserved in aspic or telling us how much he loves us all. It's both not what I excepted at all but there again, of course, exactly the kind of moment I expect Bob Dylan to deliver.

This Tempest storming out is, of course, another trick of this particular Prospero's. He's soon back on, playing an encore consisting of a killer psychedelic All Along the Watchtower and the elegiac Roll on John. He's show that he's still a conjurer to be reckoned with and his staff ain't broke, there's still a whole lot of shaking going on.