ANCIENT PASSION PLAY

Taranaki Daily News, 5 October 1929, Page 27 (Supplement)

ANCIENT PASSION PLAY

THREE HUNDRED YEARS OLD. In an isolated corner of the Inn Valley, in the Tyrol, lies the village of Exl, where a Passion play has been given at regular intervals since 1613, according to Neues Wiener Journal. It is therefore 21 years older than the more famous one of Oberammergau. It had. its origin, like the Bavarian Passion play, at the time of the plague which raged in the Inn Valley from about 1610. Since 1892 the villagers have given performances every ten years, and have spent the .intervening time in practising and in discovering new talent. The village of Exl became famous last year as the scene of a new Passion play, based not on the life of Christ, but on that of the Madonna. Its author, the Tyrolese priest, Father Innerkofler, has kept closely, to the manner of the Christ Passion play, in many cases incorporating the exact words of - the Scriptures into his rhyming couplets. The play was to be given every Sunday until September in the newly-built hall, put up for the traditional Passion play. It is capable of seating well over a thousand pepole, and has a roomy stage and modern lighting effects. The part of the Madonna is taken by a beautiful village girl, Notburga Pfisterer, daughter of the village carpenter. She is deeply imbued with the spirit of the Passion play, for her father, both in 1912 and ten years later, played the part of the Christ. •