Birdseye Views of Far Lands

by James T. Nichols

The play itself occupies about eight hours. There are six hundred and eighty-five people in it, but only one hundred and twenty speaking parts. The principal actors are not many, but during the play there are many children as well as old men and women take part. There are twenty-two tableaus; seventy-six scenes and in all eighteen acts. The tableaus represent Old Testament prophecies of the events portrayed. It must be remembered, however, that the play represents only the events that occurred during the last week of Christ's life.

The music is simply wonderful. For generations these mountain people have been developing a tenderness and pathos that really grips one's heart. The music was composed by a man by the name of Dedler, about one hundred years ago, and while it gives expression to the composer's tender heart, yet experts say that it reminds them of Hayden and Mozart. The paintings in the building are those of great masters. It took an entire year to paint the scenery for the play in 1910, but they could not afford to spend so much upon it in 1922. The curtains and costumes are of fine material, nothing shoddy or cheap about it.

The story of the beginning of the Passion Play is as interesting as a novel. It was in the year 1633. A pestilence was raging in the villages in the mountains of Bavaria and death rode down the valleys like a mighty conqueror. Hundreds were smitten and the hand of death could not be stayed. Whole villages were depopulated and even the dead were left unburied. For a while the village of Oberammergau was favored, while neighboring villages were stricken. A line of sentinels were stationed around the village and a strict quarantine was maintained. Finally, love of home and the desire to see his family caused a laboring man, Casper Schushler, who was working in another village, to steal through the line and spend an evening at his own family fireside.

In a couple of days all was changed. The songs of the children were hushed in silence, for this man had brought the plague into the village. In thirty-three days eighty-four had perished and scores of others were smitten by the hand of death. It was a great crisis and looked as though that soon there would not be left among the living enough to bury the dead. A public meeting was called. It was a sad gathering of hollow-eyed men and women. They spent the whole day in earnest prayer. They vowed to the Lord that day that if he would hear their petition and save them, they would repent of their sins as a token of their sincerity, and that they would try to re-enact the scenes of Calvary and thus give an object lesson of God's love for humanity.

The chronicler says that from that moment the hand of death was stayed. Not another person in the village died from the plague. Every one smitten recovered and by this they knew that the Lord had heard their prayers. At once they set about to carry out their vow. From that day forward they aimed to give the object lesson every ten years and have done so except on occasions when they have been hindered by war, as two years ago. In 1910 a quarter of a million people endured the hardships and inconveniences of a long, tiresome journey, sometimes spending many hundred dollars, to see the play.

The day I spent there was one of the shortest days in my memory. Sermons not an hour long have sometimes seemed longer than this entire day. A strange silence was everywhere. There was no gaiety such as one sees at a theater. There was no applause, no laughter. Criticise it if you will, condemn it if you like, yet the fact remains that it is the greatest object lesson of the ages. It would be hard for any man to see it and not come away with a more tender heart and a better appreciation of the world's Redeemer. The late William T. Stead truly called this play "The Story That Has Transformed the World."

No other story so fills and thrills the soul. I saw non-Christian men sit trembling with emotion and great tears rolling down their faces. Sometimes one's indignation was so aroused that it was hard to sit still. At other times the fountains of the great deep were broken up and one's heart would nearly burst. On this particular day every one of the four thousand seats were taken and five hundred people stood up from morning until evening. It is as impossible to describe the Passion Play as it is to describe a song. It is real life before your eyes. I have never yet seen pictures of it that did not make me heart-sick, for it is impossible to give a true picture of it on the screen.

On years when the play is given it generally begins about the middle of May and closes the last of September. They give it regularly on Sunday and Wednesday of each week during this time. During the busy season it is often repeated for the overflow on Monday and Thursday and occasionally on Friday. Tickets for the regular play are generally sold out beforehand but as usual a great many reach the place without tickets and have to be accommodated in this way.

All the years the highest ambition of the boys and girls in the village is to so live that they will be chosen for some prominent part in the play. No one can be chosen unless born in the village and this confines it to the village. No one is chosen for a prominent part if there is anything against his character and that places a premium on right living. Hence one can easily see their reason for hating war with all their power. While narrow in their peculiar religious ideas, no doubt, yet a more consecrated and devoted class of people are perhaps not found in another village on earth.

All told there are nearly a thousand people who are connected in some way with the play and as the population of the village is less than two thousand, it practically takes in every family and sometimes every member of the family. The choosing of the important players is always an important event in the village. After a season closes no characters are chosen for seven years. At length the day arrives when the committee of fourteen who are to choose the leading characters for the play three years hence is elected. It is a great day. The assembly meets in the town hall. Every parishioner has a vote. The mayor of the village is chairman.