Once More Oberammergau

Cash and controversy over a Passion play

"Die Passion zahlt's" (The Passion will pay for it), people like to say in Oberammergau. And, indeed, the famous Oberammergau Passion Play, first performed in the picture-postcard Bavarian hamlet back in 1634, has kept the local economy humming for much of the 20th century. It is a six-hour production, put on for a four-month run every ten years with a cast of 800. A quarter of the town (pop. 4,800) takes part, working as stagehands, orchestra members, singing away in the huge chorus, or milling about as Roman soldiers or members of Jewish crowds. Many of the villagers know by heart, and vie bitterly with one another for a chance to play, the roles of Jesus, Mary, Judas, Pilate or one of the twelve Apostles.

Tourists can park their cars on Judas Street or munch a snack on Manna Street. Souvenir sellers thrive. In 1970 the town earned a net profit of $3 million, which helped to finance a new village swimming pool and sports center. For the 1980 production, package deals for tourists cost up to $200 and include the play plus food and two nights' lodging.

But since the Nazi Holocaust, the play has been a source of controversy as well as cash. Jews and liberal Christians alike have charged the play with antiSemitism. The recounting of Christ's Passion, though it is drawn from the New Testament, embroiders considerably upon the biblical accounts. The florid script, rewritten from older versions in 1860 by Parish Priest Joseph Alois Daisenberger, fixed blame for the Crucifixion totally upon the Sanhedrin and the Jewish rabble, which amateur actors portrayed with much shaking of angry fists and fiendish cries for Jesus' blood. After the Second Vatican Council declared in 1965 that Jews--ancient or modern--bear no collective guilt for Christ's death, the mostly Catholic villagers snipped some of the worst caricature out of the Daisenberger text for the 1970 run. But U.S. Jewish organizations still protested fervently.

For this year's show, Oberammergau reformers thought they could solve the problem by replacing the Daisenberger play with an older and less passionate Passion text written by Father Ferdinand Rosner of the nearby Ettal Monastery and first performed in 1750. Rosner's allegory-laden verses blame the whole tragedy on the Devil. The "Rosnerites" raised cash for a 1977 trial production. Critics loved the show, but the villagers missed their old familiar lines, scenes and songs from the Daisenberger version. In the 1978 election of the village council, the "Daisenbergers" won and promptly scheduled the usual Passion text, which had its 1980 premiere last week.

They did agree to doctor it a bit. The new script avoids calling Jews Frevlerbrut (a sacrilegious brood) or verblendetes Volk (a deluded people). And when the mob shouts for Barabbas, a few Jews also cry for Jesus' release. Cruelty and vindictiveness are displayed by the loutish Roman soldiery as well as Jews.

Also a new, disarming prologue addresses the Jewish people:

Greetings also to you, brothers

and sisters of the people Who brought forth the

Redeemer.

Let no one try to find blame in

others.

Let each of us recognize His own guilt in these events ...

Munich's Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger declared from an Oberammergau pulpit, "AntiSemitism has no part in this play." Saying that anti-Semitism can be brought on "by talking about it," he added: "I beg of everybody, particularly our Jewish friends, to stop reproaching us with an anti-Semitism totally alien to the historic roots and content of this play."

But Oberammergau reformers are not satisfied. The production, says Hans Schwaighofer, head of Oberammergau's venerable woodcarving school, "does not alter the play's strident tone or its message: the collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus." Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee, who has lobbied the villagers for years, is horrified: "The play is a nightmare of antiSemitism. Jews are still portrayed as bloodthirsty and cruel characters."

Despite these criticisms, half a million tourists are expected to flock to the village this summer. And the mountain folk of Oberammergau are unlikely soon to give up their Passion. Says a Roman soldier in the cast: "We have acted in this play as children. We have sung in the choir and lived with the text all our lives. We shall not abandon it because some people in New York and fancy art critics think Rosner is better. This is our play. They can't take it away from us."

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