Oberammergau Passion Play

[2] The play is a staging of Jesus' passion, covering the short final period of His life from His visit to Jerusalem and leading to His execution by crucifixion.

On 28 October 1633, the villagers vowed that if God spared them from the plague, they would perform a play every 10 years depicting the life and death of Jesus.

They include a scene of King Ahasuerus rejecting Vashti in favor of Esther, the brothers selling Joseph into slavery in Egypt, and Moses raising up the nehushtan (bronze serpent) in the wilderness.

In the first, Adam and Eve, wearing sheepskins are banished from the Garden of Eden by a winged angel who holds a sword in the form of a flame.

The second living picture traditionally showed a number of girls and smaller children surrounding a cross at center stage.

In the past, this act began with a tableau showing the sons of the patriarch Jacob conspiring to kill Joseph in the Plain of Dothan; the frieze was deleted from the 1980 presentation.

In the first, the young Tobias departs from his parents while the angel Raphael, played by another boy, waits, crook in hand, stage left.

Two tableaux show Moses with rays or horns protruding from his head, bringing manna and grapes to the people in the wilderness.

The first, a non-sequitur, which we are told explains that man must earn his food by the sweat of his brow, shows Adam, in sheepskin and assisted by a brood of similarly attired children, drawing a plow across a field.

The Old Testament parallel has Micah slapped on the cheek by Zedekiah, priest of Baal, for daring to predict King Ahab would die in battle.

Pilate's interrogation, coupled with news of his wife's dream, convinces the governor that Jesus should be prosecuted by Herod Antipas for lese majesty.

Herod treats Christ with scorn, demanding a miracle, then sends him back to Pilate, cloaked in a red mantle of royalty.

Two graphic pictures showing the presentation of Joseph's bloodied coat to Jacob, and Abraham about to stab Isaac on Mt.

Retained, however, are tableaux which show Joseph riding a sedan chair as vizir of Egypt and another which supposedly represents the scapegoat offering of Yom Kippur.

The fame of the Play must have spread quickly to the surrounding towns and villages for as early as 1674 records show that seats were to be provided for the audience.

By the middle of the 18th century, it was obvious that the graveyard was also too small and a new venue was found on a field close by; however, the stage had to be specially built every year of the Play.

The theatre was enlarged in time for the 1930 and 1934 seasons and whilst it was considered ugly and uncomfortable it was praised for its superb acoustics and sight of the stage.

It has now been transformed – new more comfortable seating has been installed along with under-floor heating; cloakrooms have been extended; the foyer made accessible for wheelchair users; exhibition areas added; safety and toilet facilities improved.

[11][12][3][page needed] Adolf Hitler indicated, according to Abe Foxman, approval of these allegedly anti-Semitic elements in the Oberammergau Passion Play.

[12] After Nazi Germany's defeat in World War II, the passion play came under increasing pressure from American Jews because of its anti-Semitic elements.

[8] In the 1960s, Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, Paul Celan, and other prominent intellectuals called for a boycott due to the play's antisemitism.

Stückl, alongside dramaturgist Otto Huber, made considerable changes to the 1990 version to remove antisemitism from the text.

[8] A 2010 review in the Jewish newspaper The Forward stated: "It is undeniably true that the play was virulently antisemitic through most of its history, and that it gained an extra dose of notoriety after Hitler endorsed the 1934 production.

"[14] The review noted that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) stated that the play "continues to transmit negative stereotypes of Jews" and that even the Catholic Church demanded changes to the play, to bring it more in line with church policies expressed by the Second Vatican Council, 1962–1965, in the Apostolic Constitution, Nostra aetate, 4, October 28, 1965 ("[T]he Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God as if this followed from Sacred Scripture").

After viewing the play, the reviewer was sympathetic to its artistry and felt less offended by its message than by "Wagner's antisemitic caricatures and religious mysticism".

[11] This reflects both the historic progress in Christian-Jewish relations in the past decades and also lingering tensions over the anti-Jewish implications of certain traditional Christian interpretations of the Gospels’ narratives of Jesus's conviction and execution.

Among other things, the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda ordered the official poster for the jubilee season amended to include the message "Deutschland ruft dich!"

"), and the Kraft durch Freude scheme's discount-travel programme offered special cut-rate packages for the Passion Play, including train fare, tickets and accommodations.

[citation needed] Official propaganda described the Passion Play as "peasant drama ... inspired by the consecrating power of the soil", and Hitler attended a performance.

An attempt to rewrite the Passion Play script to bring it into line with Nazi ideology was rejected, however, by the more conservative element.