The Carpenter - Frantisek Jesus

I am sometimes asked how I found our Czech house. The answer is Hannah's carpenter - Frantisek. She told him I was looking and he took it upon himself to find the right house for me. When I said how it called to my soul, he did one of his mysterious smiles and said "Vim" (I know). That comment pretty much summed him up. He was a man of very few words, seldom more than two left his lips at any one time. But he had a spirituality that was beyond words. The first time I met Frantisek was when he was playing Jesus in the Horice na Sumava Passion play - a part he was made for. Hannah and I joked that he was so into method acting that he never came out of character. To my husband and me Frantisek is always known as "Frantisek  Jesus."

Frantisek was an artist rather than a carpenter. I remember how he stroked the curve of a desk he made for Hannah out of one plank of wood. Nothing Frantisek made was ever quite straight, which was a problem if you wanted him to make a door, but not if you wanted something beautiful. How I wanted him to make me some furniture. But first the house needed repairing, and after a disaster in which he removed my windows to repair without numbering them, I was disinclined to offer him precision work.

One day he arrived excited that he could source some wood cheaply for Hannah and me. We both ordered a load of rough hewn planks - Hannah chose oak and I elm. Mine were piled in the barn to wait the time when they could be transformed into furniture. Very soon I discovered that mine had woodworm, something elm is prone too. Woodworm didn't seem to worry Frantisek over much. On a visit to his house and workshop in Horice, I found my feet sinking into the floorboards they were so wormy. When I finally left my Czech home, the elm planks remained unused and were only fit for firewood. I never did get the chance to own one of Frantisek's quirky bookcases.

Over the years Frantisek would occasionally turn up for a wordless visit. But then his visits stopped. When I asked my neighbour, a mutual friend, she told me that Frantisek had been working in Germany (something many local craftsmen do) and that one day coming home over the Sumava mountains and probably tired after a long week of work, he mistook a tight bend and drove into a tree. His son who was with him was thrown clear, but Frantisek was killed.

I shall always be grateful for that silent, strange and wonderful man. When I left my Czech home I left a carving, the only thing Frantisek made for me, a self portrait of Jesus. It was too heavy to take on the plane and besides I very much felt that it should stay there.

Horice Na Sumava Passion Play

Before we had even bought our Czech home, we attended a performance of the Passion Play at the small town of Horice Na Sumave. This year I was invited to see it again by a neighbour who is taking part in the chorus.

When we arrived at the open-air theatre on the outskirts of town an hour before curtain up (not that there was a curtain) there was already a lot of people sitting at tables drinking beer and tucking into chips and mayonnaise. As it was the first night, this was very much a performance by and for the locals. There was a group of Austrians. whose town also has a passion play and who were made very welcome. 

The Passion Play is staged in a specially landscaped amphitheatre. The audience sits on the flat undercover, but the performers must risk the elements. The show starts at 8.30pm, so as the play proceeds towards the crucifixion the night takes over. Torches gutter and from the wooded hills come the calls of wild animals. It all makes for a very special experience and even though the play is in Czech I was very much engaged in the show.

Passion plays have been performed at Horice Na Sumave since 1816. The Horice Passion was so famous that in 1897 it was the subject of one of the earliest films, made by Klaw and Erlanger and distributed by Edison's Company. The Passion then went on for hours and was performed in a huge theatre complex on the site of the current theatre.

The original theatre complex

So what happened? Why isn't the Horice Passion as well known as Obergammergau? What happened was first the Second War and the displacement of the German population and therefore the play's performers from the area. The new Czech population tried to revive the plays and apparently the 1946 and 1947 performances (now in Czech) were a great success. But the arrival of the Communists in power ensured that this expression of communal religion was suppressed. The theatre was demolished and it seemed that the Horice Passion was silenced.

But the spirit of the Passion was and is strong. No sooner had Communism been overthrown, but the Passion play began to be revived. A society was set up and in 1993 the Passion was once more performed on the hillside above Horice Na Sumave. As I sat in the gloom last night, watching Christ on the cross being raising above the theatre, it did not matter that this was an amateur production, that the Pharisees appeared to be wearing lampshades or that the acting was sometimes a bit wooden. The passion behind the Passion won through and the commitment of those taking part gave the play an authenticity that a professional production would lack.

Horice Na Sumave Passion Play

Horice Na Sumave is famous for its passion play. The play is performed each summer outdoors in a theatre created in a natural arena just above the town. The audience is under cover, the actors not so. The 50 performers are local amateurs and when we first saw it a couple of years ago, Jesus was performed appropriately enough by our carpenter. The play is delightful, even if we hardly understand a word, in a way only amateur productions can be, and the play has the added piquancy of the devotion of the performers.

The play has been performed since the 19th century with a break during the Nazi and Communist regimes. It even used to have its own theatre, which was destroyed by the communists. Originally it was performed in German up until the Second World War, after which the German-speaking population were expelled to Germany and a new Czech population established. Thus when the passion play was revived in 1993 it was rewritten in Czech.

As a postscript when we first moved to the area, the town used to have a hotel innocently called Hotel Passion. There was a sign for the hotel on the main road just before you came to the turn off to Horice. I note that they have now renamed the Hotel Stare Skola, no doubt because of the unwanted attention the hotel used to receive.

For more about the history of the Horice Na Sumave Passion Play - check out the dedicated page on the Cesky Krumlov website from which we have borrowed the above photo.