Oberammergau Passionsspiele: Exploring a Sacred Theatre – Part 5

The Theatre Backpacker
OBERAMMERGAU PASSIONSSPIELE: EXPLORING A SACRED THEATRE 5
By Jack Paterson | Part 5 of 10

5. OBSERVING REHEARSALS DAY 2 : MUSIC AND TABLEAUX VIVANT

DATE: April 2022
Location: Oberammergau, Germany
Activity: Rehearsals

For my final two days, I am able to observe the 2nd act of the Passionsspiele put together through works throughs.

After a bit of Covid 19 nose stick confusion – even though all activities take place outdoors, all members of the cast, crew and any attending visitors must do an antigen test before entering the venue. A team of volunteers begins running the tests an hour before rehearsal. On any given day, over 2000 tests may be done between 5 and 6pm.

I manage to enter the venue 10 minutes early and find a rare moment when the director is by himself. I work up the courage to talk to him.

No matter where you go, no matter what theatre in what part of the world, some things are always the same. Designers and operators set up a table half-way up the audience. A crew member runs an extension cord up an aisle. Small groups of people gather across the stage and in the audience. A group of women from the choir stand in a circle chatting. One spins, delighted in the twirl of her skirt. This is as much a community social event as a theatre production or ritual.

There are early evening sunbeams today, dancing across the stage. A violin tuning cuts through the birdsong from the rafters.

Stückl, the director, stands casually on stage, hands in his pockets, occasionally checking the time on his phone. An actor comes out in full costume – they chat, the young man does a few lunges in his robes to check his mobility. They chat some more. Stückl points to a spot on the floor and another young man from the front row table runs up to tape a few marks on the stage floor.

In the upstage centre passage, the crew is hanging a noose.

Laughter rings through the space, as the orchestra warming up begins to drown out the birdsong and the chit chat of several hundred people.

The choir is mostly made of women, with a smattering of men. I count about 75 people or so on my fingers. Several are wearing winter coats over their costumes.

One third of the play is the music and choir combined with the Tableaux Vivant or Living Images. Other than a trumpet at Pilate’s entrance, no record of the music from the early days of the passion play to the 19th century has survived. This years’ music is based on the compositions of local composer Rochus Dedler (1779 – 1822) inspired by his love of his contemporaries such as Mozart.

Dedler’s compositions for the Passion Play were originally created for a small chamber orchestra and a choir of 6 guardian spirits. Today, the orchestra comprises of 60 classic woodwinds, brass instruments, timpani, and strings plus over a hundred soloists, vocalists and choristers who guide the audience through the play as a chorus.

Dedler’s music has been frequently adapted and enhanced to meet the needs of the times. This year, it has been rearranged, edited, and supplemented with original compositions by musical director and conductor Markus Zwink. Also on his fourth Passion play, his new composition for the play includes ensembles and arias for new “Living Pictures”.

To maintain the unique traditional skill sets needed for the music, the village has multiple choirs and orchestras operating throughout the 10 year gaps between productions.

Stückl says something in German. Horns sounds. Two massive groups enter from the upstage stage left and right passages.

“Stop! Stop! Go back. Go back.”

A middle-aged woman pokes her head out. A question is asked and answered. There are smiles. A joke is cracked, and we are back to ones. The horns begin again and over 75 voices lift me up in a hymn.

As a soloist begins, the upstage centre curtain opens revealing a “Tableaux Vivant”. Even as the lighting designer makes adjustments, even though only in partial costumes, I hear myself say “oh. Wow.”
The director runs up on stage, makes a few position adjustments and is back in the audience bleachers before the curtain closes.

The “Tableaux Vivants” or “Living Images” have been a feature of the Oberammergau Passion Play since 1750. These are frozen scenes with multiple performers in costume, props, scenery, and lighting. The images are drawn from the Old Testament, but other than a few “non-negotiable” images such as the Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, their content changes every production.

This year designer Stefan Hageneier has drawn from stories of exile and disaster, fusing multiple scenes from a story into one image. It’s not a stretch to make the connections between then and now.

The image was an angel and a woman on her knees over the body of a man. Grief. The dead man lies in his modern dress – wool hat, winter jacket and hiking boots. And then I realise this is a contemporary image as much as a tableau from the old testament. This is an image of Covid.

“Theatre isn’t a timeless art form,” Hageneier said in an interview with Theater Zeit (Setting the Stage) on the project, “rather it constantly stakes its claim with textual and aesthetic renewal.”

This year’s theme is exile. War, hunger, persecution, and human displacement echo through the the production’s imagery.

NEXT: EVOLVING TO MEET THE TIMES

More By Jack Paterson:

Oberammergau Passionsspiele: Exploring a Sacred Theatre – Part 3

Oberammergau Passionsspiele: Exploring a Sacred Theatre – Part 4