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.
