In Oberammergau you grow into the Passion from an early age. The children in the village not only perform with the adults, they also develop their own little Passion Play independently, which they stage in the summer of the Passion Year. Drama provides structure here. “The Passion determines the rhythm of life for the individual as well as the community. The stages of life are marked by the dates of the play,” wrote Josef Georg Ziegler in 2000. “Anyone who waved the palm frond on the arm of their big sister as a child in the Entry into Jerusalem might be an extra in the tableaux vivants the next time, finally bidding their farewells as one of the old men ‘beating their breasts beneath the Cross’.”¹⁰

Living to the rhythm of the Passion

Performing is almost a matter of honour. The people of Oberammergau make room in their life for the Passion from the beginning right through to the end, adapting their own biography to the rhythm of the play. For six months, students have themselves nailed to the Cross several times a week, and flight attendants take unpaid leave to mourn their dead son as Mary. Anyone unable...