Building a Passion Play from Scratch to Bows

Last year our church took a giant step backward—into a medieval tradition that may have its earliest roots in the Catacombs themselves. With a borrowed script, a modest investment in some second-hand theater lighting, and a cast borrowed from other churches—and even from the city streets (one of our best actors is a street person)—we staged Bangor, Maine’s first annual Passion Play—the Easter story of Jesus’ final days on earth.

“Blessed are those who mourn . . .” Jesus tells his followers in the Sermon on the Mount.

No doubt God wanted us to succeed. After all, we didn’t get started until after Christmas, when a small band of people who like theater stopped in to ask if we’d like to stage some theater productions in the church.

I didn’t say “no.” For some thirty years before my ordination, I had volunteered to be in at least one summer stock production a season. At the same time, my wife Charlene teaches ballet to school-age children, and has choreographed and directed performances, including sacred dance for churches. One thing we had always envisioned was to establish a Passion Play tradition in the area. With theater people on our doorstep, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to start. We voted to establish a theater company, called the Harborside Players, to do religious theater at our 150-year-old Union St. Brick Church.

The Last Supper

Actually, the idea was not so unorthodox. Theater early on became a part of the Christian tradition. In the years following Jesus’ crucifixion, for example, St. Paul traveled around the Roman empire delivering the Christian message to distant congregations. But when he couldn’t be there himself, Paul would send letters and a reader—a reader trained to deliver the message with all the nuance and power of Paul himself. Moreover, some scholars now believe that certain Gospel stories were acted out, as well—even perhaps by Christians hiding in the Catacombs. To instruct the faithful, the story of Christ’s passion—his suffering, death, and resurrection—was performed in devout and worshipful ways. Thus, a tradition now known as the Passion Play was probably born during the earliest centuries of the church.

The Passion Play came fully into its own during the European Middle Ages, when many Bible stories were performed in churches by congregations or by traveling troops of actors. In time, the Easter story grew into cyclic plays such as the great Celtic Passion cycles of Cornwall and Brittany.

Caiaphas, the High Priest (played by Sean Harper), listens as charges are made against Jesus.

Unfortunately for the tradition, these shows came to be embellished with comic devils and the like, until churches became reluctant to continue such performances in the sanctuary. As the plays became more secular and less instructive, they finally lost favor with the church. Coincidentally, the invention of the printing press coupled with the Reformation meant even the poorest peasants could begin to read the Bible stories for themselves. Theater to instruct—like stories told in stained glass windows—became less necessary for religious education. Nevertheless, a few communities held onto the tradition. The residents of Oberammergau, Bavaria, for instance, have staged a Passion Play each decade since 1634. With some 1700 townspeople/performers, their performance begins early in the morning and lasts seven hours. This ongoing production represents the fulfillment of a promise their ancestors made to God nearly 400 years ago, when a plague known as the Black Death threatened to wipe out their village.

Passion Plays and Anti-Semitism

Some of the early Passion Plays raised other issues, as well. The question of “who” killed Jesus has aggravated Jewish-Christian relations since Christianity became less a branch of Judaism and more a religion for the gentiles. For Christians honest about their own fallen nature, the answer is obvious: Jesus died for us all because we are all stained by sin. Jesus’ death was not the fault of the Jews or the Romans, or of Judas or Pontius Pilate. Evil has infected the world, and God allowed his Son to be sacrificed so that we might be forgiven. This is an idea so basic to Christian faith that I believe the historic blame laid on the Jews for the death of Jesus was simply a political lie–equivalent to the lies perpetrated by Adolph Hitler. The Bible tells us the Jews are God’s chosen people, and as such they have collectively borne suffering as heartbreaking as Jesus’ own. As he was made a scapegoat, so too have been the Jewish people. Part of the wisdom, the genius of the Bible narrative, is that it points out our fatal flaw—a flaw that stretches from Cain’s murder of Abel to the killing reported on the evening news. Only a great gift from the Creator—historic, yet also existing outside of time—could save us from ourselves.

King Herod (played by Director Gerald Button) challenges Jesus to “do a miracle” to amuse Herod's wife, Herodias (played by Judy Sims).

The Passion Play in America

The script for that first production of our Passion Play was graciously provided to us by a Catholic group in Union City, New Jersey. First staged by the pastor of Holy Family Church in the 1920’s, it was this group’s production that began the cycle of annual Passion Plays in the United States. Other locations where the tradition is carried on include a summer performance of the Black Hills Passion Play in Spearfish, South Dakota, a winter production in Lake Wales, Florida, a production in Atlanta, Georgia, one in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and an annual production in Montreal, Canada. The Union City script we used was a one-time only event, however. The rights have been sold, and the show is currently being worked up for a national touring company.

This presented us with an interesting dilemma. What would we use for a script this year? Rather than looking to other established productions, Charlene and I decided to write one for ourselves. Charlene (who has a Master of Theological Studies, along with her theater skills) has been a fine student of Hebrew and Greek. We decided to stick closely to the Gospel of John (with some input from Matthew), for an expanded telling of the story. With some modification, we were able to develop the Jesus story to cover the growing excitement of his message and miracles, leading up to his fatal last week in Jerusalem. And this we surrounded in an introduction (told by an angel) of the first Adam, and a closing that sets the stage for Christ’s return. The show includes music, with a choir, piano, and drums. The choir provides the echoed message of the classical Greek chorus tradition. Some of the songs are new, and some are traditional hymns—such as the moving, “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” This year, sets will be kept to a minimum, with the sanctuary of the church becoming the symbolic Garden, Temple, Palace and place of sacrifice.

As far as we know, our Bangor production at the Union Street Brick Church is the first annual Passion Play to be performed in New England (if any of you out there have information about other New England productions, please give me a call!)

Pontius Pilate (played by Ed Wiseman) asks Jesus, “What is truth?”

Is the Passion Play great theater?

The Passion Play is less than great theater–and more. It is acted by amateurs in a paraphrase of the biblical text—with the insertion of somewhat anachronistic music. But if it’s not cutting edge theater, then what is it? The closest analogy that comes to mind is the Catholic tradition of meditating upon the Stations of the Cross. In that regard it can be very real to an audience of the faithful, as their friends and neighbors take the time to perform Jesus’ story of faith and love. And while our production may lack splashy special effects, or the sophistication of Broadway theater, it can nevertheless speak to the heart in profoundly moving ways. Many who saw it last year said they had never before felt so close to the story of what Jesus gave to us through his death and resurrection. And if that isn’t what church is all about, I don’t know what is.

Would you like to try it at your church?

As I write this, we are busy casting for our 2003 production. Once again, we are reaching out into the larger community, drawing from local Evangelical, Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, and even Unitarian congregations. This is ecumenicism in action, and it provides lasting benefits all around, while it tells a story that is profoundly meaningful to almost everyone involved.

Pilate weighs the charges against Jesus, while his wife, Claudia (played by Diane Galutia), tells him, “Have nothing to do with that man!”

If you would like to try it at your church, please give us a call. We’d be glad to fill you in on the specifics of how we staged the show, and provide you with our script for a nominal donation. I can’t think of a better outcome to our efforts in Bangor, Maine, than the growth of Passion Play productions throughout the U.S.—and it would please me no end to see NACCC-member churches taking the lead. What do you say?

The Rev. Leland Witting is the NACCC-ordained pastor of the Union Street Brick Church, in Bangor, Maine. The church, an Independent Congregational Society, has applied for membership in the NACCC. He may be reached at (207) 945-9798, or by e-mail at congchurch@hypernet.com.