OPENING ON SUNDAY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 108, 9 May 1930, Page 9

OPENING ON SUNDAY

SCENE AT OBERAMMERGAU

FINAL REHEARSALS

United Press Association—Bj Electric Itile.-

graph—Copyright. x (Received 9th May, 1 p.m.)

LONDON, Bth May

At Oberaniinergau to-day tho villagers of this tiny Bavarian town.,again showed tho devotion with which they fulfil the solemn vow of. their ancestors 29S years ago, when the plague was raging, to represent tho Passion of Christ every ten years.

The final rehearsal at the new theatre in preparation for Sunday's official opening was witnessed by the entire Bavarian Government, the Papal Nuncio, and world-wide celebrities. The fluttering costumes of the players, the crucified figure on the Cross amid drizzling rain under dark, scurrying clouds over towering mountains made a most effective spectacle. Every third inhabitant in the village participates in the performance, with 550 on the stage in the choir or orchestra and two hundred as stage hands. Despite tho. financial complications involved in presenting- the play under modern conditions —tho new theatre alone cost £50,000 —there is every evidence of the original religious intention maintained in the spirit as well as in the form. There are 5500 beds for strangers in the village of 2100 inhabitants. Thirtyfive performances will be given. A "journalist spoke to Alois Lang, who is the Christus, a gentle, lovable man, tired by long rehearsal. "It is anxious work," he said sadly. "There are unpaid rehearsals all winter evenings, and in the daytime Ido woodcarving. Now I have the leading part. I hope for a good price, for even a Christus must live.' We have fourteen boarders." ■ "To-morrow he gets no rest,''broke in his stout wife, who was accompanied by five dachshunds halfway down tho village. The- High Priest _ Caiphas was shooing a horse. He is a big, handsome fellow with a black beard. "No one loves Caiphas," he said. "I've played the part twice, but my son ho plays tho Angel at the Tomb, which is better."