THE VILLAGE THAT LIVES ON A PLAY

Evening Star, Issue 21718, 12 May 1934, Page 11

THE VILLAGE THAT LIVES ON A PLAY

ROMANCE OF OBERAMMERGAU TOLD OY AKTON LAKG Tlic Oberammergau Passion Play is being performed this year from May to September. In all there will be twenty-eight performances. This season is tho tercentenary of this famous play, the last survival of the miracle play of the Middle -Ages. Exactly three centuries ago the inhabitants of the little mountain village of Oberammergau took a' solemn oath to enact, once every ton years, a pageant'of tho chief events in tho lift’ of Christ. Each succeeding generation has faithfully kept the pledge, regarding it as a sacred trust. This year the ten-year cycle has been broken to secure a tercentenary celebration. Most famous of all tho actors in tho Oborammergau pageant is Anton Lang, whoso wonderful face is remarkably like that which Rembrandt, Michael Angelo, and other Renaissance artists conceived as the ideal of Christ; —short hoard, long chestnut hair, now liberally sprinkled with grey, and kindly blue

eyes, which seem to look beyond externals into the very heart, with a sympathetic understanding of human frailties that in itself is Christ-like. To-day Anton Lang is fifty-nine years old. This year ho is taking the part of the Prologue, but the memory of his portrayals of Christ will live for ever. He played the lending'part for the first time in 1900 at the age of twenty-six. ‘“I began as an actor in the Passion Play when I was five years old,” said Anton Lang, “ and I was late. Many of the children begin at three. They arc carried in the arms of their mothers, and later, when they grow older, they become figures in tho crowd that watched the panorama of the Saviour’s life. :

“ Through all their lives, interests, and desires are centred in the Passion Play, as are those of their parents. Generation after generation, Oberainmergau lives lor the Passion Play, and lives in it, while following the simple industries of daily life by which it subsists. And so it Jives by its children, and has for 300 years. They are- its hope for the continued fulfilment of the vow. They are almost born into the story of the Christ. It is their tradition. It is what fairy tales are to o t ther children. There are very small children in Ohcrammergau who, though not able to speak plainly, can lisp the lines of the Play. In the years when the play is to be given they make little theatres in the yards of their homes, mimic the play in their own. fashion. “ Obcrammergau is full of little Peters and Judases and apostles and Virgin Mothers and Mary Magdalenes. They have a heritage for many generations, and the spirit of the play is in the air they breathe. “ They learn to suffer, too, these children, who, while still in arms, are taken to the theatre to add to the completeness of the picture. The perfprmances take place from May to September, but in our mountains the air is cold, and the play goes on, rain or sunshine. The auditorium is covered, but the stage is open to the sky. On cold days the actors, and particularly the children, have to endure much, for the dress they wear is not suitable for cold countries. But the children are strong and brave as well as intelligent. “ The first real parts they play are of angels. They are just figures in the pictures, studying, hoping, and dream-, mg. As they grow up they appear in secular plays, for Oberammergau never ceases from acting. “1 can only remember dimly the first time 1 went to the theatre for the first play. When it came round again after ten years I was a big boy.' But through all those intervening years, going to school and helping my father m the potter shop, making the simple dishes our people use, 1 was studying and hoping that one day I should be given a speaking part in the greatest of all spectacles. When the next performance came 1 was just a member of the crowd. 1 thought that by the time of the next play 1 might be chosen for St. John. That was the summit of my Ambitions. My beard began to grow and 1 bad hope. One day some years later the director stopped me on the street.

“ ‘ Anton,’ lie said, ‘ you must let your hair and beard grow now. You are a man. Wo shall see if we cannot find you a part.’ “ 1 went home happy. I shall nevex forget the day when the great news came-to me. 1 was in the shop making a porcelain stove. A man came in. He had just come from a meeting of the Gcmeiuilc—the council of the village fathers which, among other duties, allots the parts for the Passion Play. He was greatly excited, “‘Anton,’ he said, ‘he happy! You have been selected to play the Christus.’

44 It was a great shock of happiness. Finishing that stove was the hardest work I ever did 1 was so nervous ,1 could hardly handle the tools. My mind was running very far away. 1 1 must have been a very bad stove. 1 had never dared hope lor any nidi distinction as to be chosen lor- the Christus. It was not to mo a mere worldly triumph. It was something more than that, for the bishop, when the Gemcinde has selected a player, has the power to cancel the appointment of a person whom lie thinks unworthj’' in a spiritual sense. “If I happened to bear a resemblance to the face which from the beginning painters and sculptors have chosen to represent Christ, that in itself seemed marvellous to me. That I should have been horn in the one place in the world whore that resemblance had more than casual importance was singular. Through what strange dispensation it came, one cannot know. But it was no credit to mo that life had not drawn on my face, through the years, the lines .of cynicism and bitterness and suspicion,. From child-

hood I had lived—and before mo my parents and grandparents for generations had lived—in tho consciousness of the Groat Teacher, and with the example of his life before us in every waking hour. “ What wo in Oberammergau feel in our daily lives—the exaltation of spirit which comes from tho consciousness of being a part of the great pageant of self-sacrifice and unselfishness, regard for others, kindness and tolerance —is what every Christian, under right conditions, should feel. Rut wo arc favoured in that wo live where temptations to greed and anger, and all tho things that Christ rebuked, are not so groat.' “ The Saviour was a workman like ns. It is easier for ns who.live simple workman’s lives than for those moving in the midst of tho complex lifo_ of tho groat cities. Wo have no craving for great gains. Our vow is to the groat thing in life, if wo were where we had to fight the daily battle against greater temptations, wo should probably in re no better than others, for humanity is frail. The personification of the sacred characters is'more than more histrionic talent. It is tho expression, helped by hereditary influence, perhaps, ol what the sense of religious duty has woven into our lives.” The role of the Christus carries a measure of physical suffering as well as of glory. Anton Lang is not a robust man, and it is surprising that he has been able to play the role so often. The presentation consists of sixty-eight performances, each lasting the entire day, with an intermission between 12 and 2 o’clock. An ingenious method is used to simulate the pierced, hands and foot and the cruel wounding of the centurion’s spear iu the Crucifixion scene. But even though suspense on the Cross is effected by a mechanical device, it is a great torture that lasts for twenty minutes or more. Under the agony of.it, Anton Lang fainted. After each ordeal he was carried unconscious to his house, rubbed with oils, and stimulated with hot wine until he regained sufficient strength to go on with the next performance. Approximately 700 residents of Obcrammorgau take part in tho Passion Play, and most of them are related directly or by marriage to Anton Lang. There are twenty families hearing the surname of Lang who have appeared in tho play for generations since it was first given in 1634. Anton’s wife was in it in 1900, but left the company after she married Anton, as the married women iu Oberammergau do not have big roles in the play. Preparations for the play start two years before the performance. In the years between the performances, The villagers work at their wood-carving and pottery trades. In 1922, the villagers were offered £400,000 for tho film rights of the Passion Play. The offer was refused, despite the fact that the village was in the grip of poverty. The 1920 performance had been forbidden by the German Communists. The young men were eager to accept the film offer because, they urged, the town could build new houses and they could get married. But Anton Lang put an end to the argument. “ If we accept tho money,” he said, “ the town will he rich. We shall forget how to work and we shall no longer he happy.”