Volume 47, Number 13 · August 10, 2000
Not Wholly Holy
By Gordon A. Craig
Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play
by James Shapiro
Pantheon, 238 pp., $24.00
The Passion Play 2000: Oberammergau
edited by the Community of Oberammergau, with contributions by Otto Huber and Christian Stückl, photographs by Brigitte Maria Mayer
Prestel, 160 pp., $25.00
Between May and October of the current year, half a million people will have traveled to the village of Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps to attend performances of the best known of the world's surviving Passion plays. Now in its fortieth season, the play originated during the Thirty Years' War after an invasion by the plague caused eighty deaths, and the village elders made a solemn vow to commemorate the Passion of Jesus Christ in dramatic form in return for divine protection.
Review, 3487 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |