SOME see this Bavarian village as a Catholic Transylvania, and its almost 400-year-old Passion play as a relic from simpler, less enlightened times.Others find the play a moving act of faith, in part because it has endured the battering of history.
This year the 5,200 Oberammergauers are again keeping the vow their forebears made in 1633 to re-enact the trial and death of Jesus (as they do every ten years, from May to October).
In fact, Oberammergau is not immune to history, or to new shocks. Some locals, including the play’s director, Christian Stückl, were educated at Ettal monastery, one of several German Catholic institutions accused this year of cruelty to children.
“There is no trust any more,” says Anneliese Breitsamter, whose son-in-law plays Judas. More than twice the number of people have left the church so far this year as in all of 2009, says Father Peter, the local priest. In the Passion-play town, indifference is not an option.
But Oberammergau’s devotion to the play is undimmed, and not just because it brings in money and tourists.
Nearly half the population takes part in the 5½-hour-long production, staged in a hangar-like auditorium partly open to the elements.
The town council, which mounts the play, is split between those who back Mr Stückl and traditionalists who dislike his innovations.
His idea to raise the curtain in the afternoon, not the morning, so drama would build as dusk fell, was put to a referendum in 2007; he won.
In other ways, too, Mr Stückl must wrestle with the past. Historically, Passion plays have spurred violence against Jews (though Oberammergau never had many).
Hitler, who saw the production in its tercentenary year, 1934, praised the play for showing the “muck and mire of Jewry”.
In 1970 the church was more progressive than the village.
The archbishop of Munich sought revisions to “anti-Semitic” parts of the play.
This cause is almost sacred to Mr Stückl. His Jesus is a Jew, addressed as “rabbi” and uttering Hebrew blessings.
“It’s a Jewish story we are telling,” says Frederik Mayet, one of two actors who play Jesus. In acquitting the Jews of Jesus’s death, the villagers make the play an indictment of religious-cum-political authority. A vengeful Pontius Pilate and a hidebound Jewish hierarchy are to blame. Comparisons with the church are inescapable.
Mr Stückl encourages this: the high priest is borne on a litter like the papal one.
The villagers don’t mind.
“Do I need the church to believe?” asks Albert Müller, who plays a member of the Jewish throng.
SIC: The Economist