Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play

The Oberammergau Passion Play has been in near-contintual production sine 1643 when (as legend has it) terrified townsfolk promised it in return for divine protection from a plague. This hoary drama seems innocent and pious enough on its surface. But after the Holocaust, as many sought the roots of the slaughter of millions of innocents, the people and traditions of Oberammergau came in for their share of scrutiny. This scrutiny topok on special urgency when the Catholic Church officially changed its position in 1965, in the landmark document "Nostra Asetate," in regard to the charge of deicide against the Jews. This book focuses on the seesaw attempts in the last 40 years to rid the play of its antisemitic elements and bring it into line with official Church teaching. Author James Shapiro makes no secret of his Jewishness, and has produced a remarkably even-handed account of the play's history and theology as well as attempts to expunge strands of anti-Semitism and Christian triumphalism. Shapiro follows the effort of Oberammergau natives Otto Huber and Christian Struckel to emphasize the Jewishness of Jesus while making a work that traditionalists would tolerate, the public would pay to see and Jewish organizations could live with. They attempt to deal with aspects of the play that show Christianity as prefigured in Old Testament writings. This idea is odious to Jews, who bridle that this "typology" reduces their faith to a preview of coming attractions. But it remains an aspect of Christianity that is difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge. The struggle within the Oberammergau community is the struggle of Christians everywhere. It may even be the divine mandate for our time--to use the analytical tools of our age to strip away layers of hatred varnished over gospels accounts that themselves are antagonistic toward Jews. To uproot hatred of Jesus's neighbors and family while retaining the Jesus of faith is no small undertaking. No wonder that less committed people have chosen one of two easy ways: to blame only the Jews for Jesus's death or to call all religion irrelevant. The book also details the self-serving myths surrounding the Oberammergau play's origins and the piety of the "simple peasant folk" who lived there. Oberammergau residents have not been above selling outsiders on the myth that they so inhabit their roles that they are hyper pious even out of play season. Indeed, Shapiro shows how this myth cuts both ways--ensuring the play's popularity, but trapping its actors in an impoverishing economic rigidity between cycles. The book neither swells on nor shies away from the dark side of Oberammergau. The community, like others in Germany, tends to whitewash its Nazi past and is surprisingly blind to its deeply-seated and axiomatic anti-Semitism. One "Jesus," Nazi party member Alois Lang, played the lead role even after the war. During the war, a jet engine plant was situated just outside of town. And the notorious Dachau concent

Although frequently cited in connection with its visitations from and support by Adolph Hitler, the passion play of Oberammergau, Bavaria is less frequently the study of the more serious and long standing issues bound up with a theatrical presentation of the last hours in the life of Jesus. Fortunately, Shapiro's work endeavors toward such an analysis.Reputedly first presented in 1634, the passion play of Oberammergau is the periodic product of a town that maintains that its prayers were answered when they were spared a plague then ravaging Bavaria. Using local talent the town attempts to -- every ten years -- retell the story of the passion through theatre.On the historic level, their actions have obviously (and in varying degrees) attracted the support of the church, the state and the faithful. In this regard this book is a great companion work to James Carroll's Constantine's Sword in its attempt to track evolving Christian self identity.On a more fundamental level, if our great canons are really inspired of the divine should this not reveal itself in our actions toward others. In a post 9/11 world can any berth be given to those who maintain hatred in the name of God or any religious work.While history informs that Hitler's Oberammergau existed within 75 miles of a Nazi death camp, significantly Shapiro puts his focus on the modern Oberammergau. The story of the 2000 passion play, according to Shapiro was a story characterized by an attempt at Christian/Jewish collaboration.In other words Shapiro permits the view that the modern passion play can -- as needs it must -- be told with eyes lifted toward heaven. Not of Hitler and hatred, but rather of an attempt at the divine.

Shapiro's a good writer, and he's able to spell out the implications of all the on-stage and backstage action at this weird Bavarian once-every-ten-years affair. From now on I am giving Obergammerau a wide berth in my travels. I'd rate the book even higher if it didn't feel overly rushed to me, written at white heat in the immediate aftermath of the 2000 Passion Play, so it has the slapdash end of one of those tabloid-isnpired true crime books that hit the supermarket racks a day after the crime takes place. Dr. Shapiro, you are brilliant at analysis, so next time out why not give a little more time for your thoughts to gel?