Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 19:2 (Nov 2022)
Article: A Note From Our Editor: “The Secularization Of The Passion”
Author: John Warwick Montgomery

A Note From Our Editor: “The Secularization Of The Passion”

John Warwick Montgomery

My article on the 2010 Oberammergau Passion Play appeared in my book, Christ As Centre and Circumference1 There I pointed out that, though a “Passion Play groupie, . . . I shall probably not attend again.” But I did, and the present article deals with the pluses (a few) and the minuses (a lot) relevant to the 2022 production.2 To learn the reason why I attended still again, the reader will have to continue to the end of this short article.

First, the upside. The music (orchestra, choir, and soloists) was simply magnificent, and can be purchased on a CD for one’s delectation at home. The interspersing of Old Testament tableaux (as in previous performances) well relate the events of Christ’s life to his prophetic past.

Now, the other side of the coin (Matthew 22:21).

1. The second half of the Play now takes place in the evening, but no theatre lighting is provided. Thus, it is now impossible to follow half the text using the Play Book. An interlinear German-English text would be most helpful, particularly when the dialogues are spoken very rapidly.
2. Costuming was dull, in contrast to the generally bright and impressive costumes of past seasons. It was often difficult to identify characters from their costuming. The Romans looked especially strange.
3. Scenes of breathtaking conversational dullness, e.g., “Jesus in Bethany.”3

4. Bizarre historical additions, such as lengthy discussions and interchanges between Pilate and Caiaphas.4 (Is it really likely that the Roman governor would have bothered to discuss the fate of Jesus in detail with the Jewish high priest?)

5. Nicodemus is given a political role far distant from what appears in the Gospel records, and nothing whatever is said as to his critical encounter with Jesus in John 3, where Jesus imparts to him of the central gospel teaching of new birth.
6. The portrait of Judas dominates the Play to such an extent that he, and not Jesus, virtually becomes its focus. Judas is presented as a disappointed idealist and martyr who wants war against the Romans and comes to reject Jesus’s quasi-pacifism. Judas’s suicide scene was particularly awkward.
7. Overblown attempts are evident to make the Play more “Jewish” by the introduction of Hebrew phraseology, a menorah, etc., in a painfully obvious attempt to avoid the (unjustified) antisemitic criticisms leveled at previous versions of the Play. (Granted, Hitl...
   
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