After the 6am alarm, a rushed breakfast and final packing, we left Kramsach just after 8 am in driving rain. The first part of the journey was difficult, not only because of the rain but because of the very low clouds hanging in the valleys. Sometimes as we travelled along the valley floors we were below the low-hanging clouds. Sometimes as we climbed the mountainside we were above them and not able to see the valley floor. And sometimes as we snaked along the mountain roads and navigated the hairpin bends we were actually in the cloud and visibility was only a few yards. That was quite worrying, like driving in a heavy fog, and suspecting there was a sheer drop on one side of you but not being able to see how big a drop it was, as the fog of cloud obscured everything. There are no photographs, unfortunately, as those I took were so hopeless I deleted them all.
It was a bit of a complicated day because we were not staying in Oberammergau but in Garmisch- Partenkirchen which is a half hour drive away. Our tickets were waiting at the hotel, but the tour guide did not want to make the detour, so she dropped us in Oberammergau just before 11 and then the bus went to Garmish to get the tickets and drop our baggage. We only had time for a fairly quick look round (and to buy blankets because the theatre is open to the air at the front) and make a quick stop for cake and coffee before it was time to meet her at 12.45. The town is quite interesting because of the many painted buildings.
This is probably the most spectacular. But there are others.
Some were painted all over, like this one.
Others just had painted panels.
The performance began at 1.30 and we had to go through security, so we needed plenty of time. We waited for our tour guide outside the theatre, close to this fountain.
This is an image repeated at the start of the play.
Unfortunately, there were traffic jams outside Oberammergau so our tour leader did not get to us with the tickets until 1.15, by which time we were a bit stressed - and she was considerably more stressed. However, we did manage to pass security and take our seats before the performance began.
I should explain that the Oberammergau Passion Plays are every 10 years, following a vow taken in 1634. There was plague in the area, and eventually it came to the village and 80 people died. So the villagers prayed to be delivered from plague, and vowed in return to put on the Passion Plays every 10 years if they were delivered. Since that time, nobody has died of plague. I didn’t ask about Covid!
We were originally booked for the 2020 presentation, but it had to be postponed until this year. I am told the next one will be 2030, and there will be an extra one in 2034 to celebrate 400 years of the presentation. All the parts are played by local people; the players have to commit to growing their hair, they must have their own hair - and their own beards, if they are older men. That would let me out, I’ve never been able to grow my hair successfully.
Obviously, it has been much commercialised since it started. As I watched the scene with Christ driving the merchants out of the temple, I did wonder what He would make of the shops full of tat, and the expensive blankets and cushions being sold to stop you freezing to death during the 5 hours or getting a numb bum in the uncomfortable seats.
I’d love to be able to post photos here, but all photos are forbidden and it’s quite strictly policed by marshals who watch like hawks and make you put the phone away. Nobody objected to photographs before the play began, fortunately.
You can probably see from this why we were in danger of freezing to death - the theatre is not really a building, it’s just a roof. And the temperature went down below 10 degrees once the sun went down, so we got very cold sitting still.
It’s not quite like the medieval miracle play cycles with which I’m familiar because it has been modernised. The most different thing is that the 5 hours are all devoted to the life of Christ. The earlier Bible stories get a nod in between scenes because the choir and soloists sing about other stories and there is a tableau at the back of the stage illustrating the story. The choir was excellent, as were the bass, soprano and contralto. The tenor wasn’t as strong, but I suspect that was possibly because he was really more comfortable being a counter tenor, as became clear during one of his later solos. I assume all the singers and musicians are local too, along with the actors. Mostly, the actors were very good, though I thought the men were generally stronger than the women. It’s a demanding commitment for everybody. They have to commit to at least 80 performances. Performances are 5 days a week, and last for 5 hours; they are in two parts with a break half way for food. The main parts are all covered by 2 people so that’s about half the performances each, as it runs from mid-May to the first week in October. Heaven knows how you hold down a job as well. Our bus driver to collect us after the plays and take us to the hotel was one of the cast, an older man with a magnificent mane of white hair and a long white beard. He just said he played many of the parts, when asked. But he was also a good bus driver!
The plays were in German of course. But you get the English text in a book so you can follow it. You need a torch once it gets dark, of course. They sell those too. I used my phone.
There were some wonderful set pieces which I wished I could have filmed. Fairly early on, we saw Jesus riding in to Jerusalem on quite a large donkey, with a huge crowd waving palm fronds and lots of excited children.
Later, the casting out of the merchants in the temple was excellent. It featured several well-behaved sheep and goats, and a basket of white doves which were released at the end of the scene and flew up out of the theatre through the open part.
The Roman soldiers were interesting. They wore round black helmets and black leather chest armour. Some had Roman looking kilts in grey, but the majority wore narrow grey trousers and jackboots. Their commander rode a horse. So did Herod, in a later scene, and he also had a camel! Sometimes it was hard to hear over the sound of the hooves on the floor, as there were several occasions when people rode horses around the stage. And I was trying to hear, because I was trying to follow the text, so I was listening for people’s names and the odd German word I might recognise.
The riot scene, when the people shouted for Barrabbas to be saved, was particularly well done and must have been difficult to control, there were so many people on-stage. It wasn’t like a usual amateur production where a crowd is usually represented by about 5 people. The huge stage was filled with people and they yelled their heads off. You really felt they were rioting and would be hard to control.
The second part had all the gruesome scenes. Judas really did hang himself. The scourging and the crown of thorns looked believably awful. And the crucifixion scene was, as you might expect, awful but mercifully, fairly short. Though I imagine it felt much longer to the unfortunate 3 men hanging there.
I didn’t find the last scene, in the Garden of Gethsemane, very believable, as I didn’t think the women were as good as some of the men. But that could have been exhaustion on my part, after sitting for so long.
It started at 1.30, and the first half finished at 4. Then we walked round to our designated restaurant for a meal. It took a while to collect the group, so it was long past 4.30 when we reached the restaurant. The meal was good and efficiently served, and we were back at the security checks by just after 6.30, in good time for the 7pm start.
Everything was over by 9.30, but it seemed to take ages to collect everybody, then we had a fairly long walk to the bus. There were two hotels, ours being the second, and we had to check in and find our luggage which our tour leader had stored for us in the luggage storage room. So it was well after 11 when we reached our room, and midnight before the light was out and we could sleep. And I had to set the alarm for 5am. - we had to leave the hotel at 5.45.
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