The Penn Stater Magazine

Finally, Oberammergau

July 21, 2010 at 6:35 am Tina Hay 2 comments

The Oberammergau Passion Play runs from May through early October, 2010.

Most of the passengers in our Penn State group are back in the U.S. now, except for a handful who extended their trip with visits to Munich and elsewhere. Although I’ve been back in State College since Monday night, I still have some catching up to do in terms of blogging, so I hope you won’t mind if I offer some more posts about the trip over the next few days.

For many of the travelers, the final day of the trip was the one they had looked forward to the most. Our 10 days in Europe finished off with a performance of the Oberammergau Passion Play, or Passionspiele.

It’s an event that happens only once every 10 years, as the residents of this tiny Bavarian town put on a huge production about the last days of Christ. The event dates to 1634, when the bubonic plague was spreading through Europe and the people of Oberammergau are said to have made a deal with God: Spare us from the plague, and we’ll perform the Passion Play every 10 years forever.

Buildings in Oberammergau are decorated with luftmalerei, or "air paintings."

Here we are more than 350 years later, and the villagers are still keeping their end of the bargain.

The population of Oberammergau is about 4,000, and about half of them are involved in the play in one form or another. The cast is announced a full year in advance, and male cast members stop shaving their beards and begin letting their hair grow long—all of the hair and beards you see in the play are real.

Attending the Passion Play is an all-day affair, we found. We arrived in town around 10 a.m. and explored the shops and the Passion Play museum for a while, then met up for lunch at noon. The show—or, more correctly, the first half of it—began at 2:30 and went 2-1/2 hours. That was followed by a dinner break, and then the play resumed at 8 p.m. and didn’t end until 11 p.m. I can safely say that that was the longest play I ever attended!

At least one couple in our group bought a cuckoo clock.

Several members of our group made use of the down-time before the play and during the intermission to visit the shops that sell wood carvings, or holzschnitzereien—the region is famous for them—and at least one couple bought a cuckoo clock.

As for the play itself, the whole thing is performed in German, but you get a book that allows you to follow along in English—and even if you don’t follow along line for line, it’s still a pretty impressive visual and aural experience. There’s a 48-member choir that opens each act, with the singers all dressed in identical white gowns. (No photos are allowed during the performance, but you can see Getty Images shots of the choir here and here.)

Some of the locals attended the Passion Play in liederhosen.

The music was exceptionally good, even if I didn’t understand a word of it, and many of us were a little amazed that a town of 4,000 could have such good singers, soloists, and orchestra members.

For each act there’s also a tableau vivant, or living picture, depicting scenes from the Old Testament, with people serving essentially as live mannequins. These were unbelievably colorful and cool, and it was killing me not to be able to take pictures of them. Getty Images has examples of the tableaux vivants here and here.

And the story line, of course, is a pretty good narrative drama, regardless of whether or not you’re a believer. I was especially struck by Judas’ remorse over betraying Jesus—in this production he’s depicted as not having intended for Jesus to be killed, and when he realizes that that’s what will happen, he is beside himself with guilt. The scene in which he takes his own life is riveting.

But that moment pales in comparison to the crucifixion scene, in which the actors who portray Jesus and the two thieves are hoisted up onto crosses on the stage. It’s done very realistically, and theatre gets very quiet as the three suffer, die, and are cut down from their crosses. Again, regardless of your religion or lack thereof, it was just an extremely well done stage production.

You can see the full set of 87 Getty Images photos of the show here.

Tina Hay, editor

NEXT: Oberammergau Photos Are Up

Entry filed under: Alumni Association. Tags: "air paintings", bubonic plague, cuckoo clocks, holzschnitzereien, liederhosen, luftmalerei, Oberammergau, Passion play, Passionspiele, wood carving.