The disputes that erupted when Christian Stückl began reforming the play in 1990 did not come out of nowhere. These conflicts had been bubbling under for decades before they burst out into the open. It was about loyalty to the past versus transformation, preserving an established staging versus reinventing tradition. Because while director Stückl treats the Passion as a traditional theatrical text, previously it seems the main objective was to preserve that which had once arisen. There is little to go on regarding staging practices in the first two centuries. The biggest turning point came in 1860, when Pastor Joseph Alois Daisenberger introduced a new version of the text. This version focussed on idealisation and psychological insight, drawing out the drama of the events. “His dramatic conception [is] based on the contrasts […] between Jesus and his followers on the one hand, and the villainous Jewish opponents on the other.”²⁹ To heighten the conflict, the Jewish merchants in the temple became negative agents, and a few elements were added to the template. To heighten the drama, but also to heighten anti-Jewish sentiment. In the decades that ensued this text became sacrosanct, as if it were the Gospel itself. The...