PEASANTS' PLAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20562, 13 May 1930, Page 9

PEASANTS' PLAY.

OBERAMMERGAU THEATRE.

HUGE EXPENSE INVOLVED*

The sum of £150,000 must be received from the audiences which, it is hoped, will assemble to witness the famous Passion Play this year before the people of Oberammergau can hope to make one penny of profit. If that amount is not forthcoming, said the special correspondent of a London paper recently, the little village community will be crushed under an overwhelming burden of debt, and this year s performance may be the last of a series which has been carried on for three centuries.

Vast sums of money have been invested, both by the Oberammergau community and by the individual inhabitants, in the peasant production. British and American visitors are expected to provide the harvest. If they fail to put in an appearance in as large numbei's as anticipated, or with their pockets not as richly lined as Oberammergau hopes, this charming little village will be faced with ruin. The box-office receipts from the 50 performances to be given between Mry 11 and September 28 must amount to more than £IOO,OOO, if only the loans advanced for the rebuilding of the Passion Play theatre and the construction of new motor roads leading to the village are to bo repaid. Another £50,000, it is estimated conservatively, has been borrowed privately by the inhabitants to finance extensive improvements to their homes, in which they propose to receive the tourists as paying guests.

Many of the houses which I have seen are being furnished with a luxury more in keeping with the requirements of the Riviera resorts than of a simple mountain village proposing to put up strangers for a couple of nights. New houses are springing np everywhere on the outskirts of the village, all of them designed to reap large profits from the Passion Play industry, and all built by comparatively impecunious people on borrowed money. The loans, Herr Raab, the manager of tho play, informs me, must be covered in full during tho present season. "Trade conditions," ho said, "are so bad here that wo can on no account face the prospect of having to pay heavy interest on even a fraction of the loans, in addition to our heavy taxes."

Tho official pricey are put on an averago at £3 a head, inclusive of board and lodging, for two nights and a day, as well as a ticket of admission to tho play. No fewer than 5200 spectators can be accommodated in the rebuilt theatre, and the inhabitants are praying for tho play to bo performed before a full house at each of the 50 performances.