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Historical Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play by James Shapiro $24.00 / Pantheon Books / 2000 The Passion Play-a play which deals with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ-flourished in Europe from the late 14th to the early 16th centuries. But through various political machinations, this Passion Play has been performed by the residents of the Bavarian village of Oberammergau to this very day. Passion plays are, by their nature, anti-Jewish, since they pin the blame for the death of Jesus on Jews and on their descendants. Legend has it that the Passion Play's performance at Oberammergau was the result of a vow made by plague survivors in 1634, that if they were spared from further infection, they would only perform the Passion Play every ten years in perpetuity. From that day on, the story goes, not another person in Oberammergau perished from the plague and the ten-year play cycle began. When Passion plays were finally banned by the Church in 1770, the village revised the script to meet church demands. But it was not until the mid-19th century that the village's play was "discovered" by outsiders. As the play was only performed once every ten years, it became something of a cult, its popularity reaching its zenith around the end of the 19th century. Interestingly, the biggest blow to the play's reputation came from Adolf Hitler, who praised the play for its negative depiction of Jews. Many of the prominent citizens of Oberammergau were themselves Nazis, and in subsequent decades, the performance of the play has been a source of controversy, involving international Jewish organizations and the Catholic Church, not to mention contentious factions in the village itself, as traditionalists and reformers vie for control of the play. A professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, Shapiro's knowledge of the theater, scriptwriting, stage performance, and the traditions of this particular medieval genre give him an authority in this discussion. His style combines both that of an intellectual and a journalist as he describes the controversies, politicking, script revisions, and staging behind the year 2000 performance, as well as the centuries of revision and politics-both church and secular-which have influenced this play. Oberammergau is an informative study of a medieval European tradition, and a riveting examination of a modern-day controversy. —Charles Rammelkamp

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