The secret
wherein lies the strength of Christianity; the reason why, of all
the faiths that Nature has taught to her children to help them in
their need, to satisfy the hunger of their souls, this faith, born
by the Sea of Galilee, has spread the farthest over the world, and
struck its note the deepest into human life. Not by his doctrines,
not even by his promises, has Christ laid hold upon the hearts of
men, but by the story of his life."
TUESDAY, THE 27TH - CONTINUED
We Discuss the Performance. - A Marvellous Piece of Workmanship. -
The Adam Family. - Some Living Groups. - The Chief Performers. - A Good
Man, but a Bad Judas. - Where the Histrionic Artist Grows Wild. - An
Alarm!
"And what do you think of the performance AS a performance?" asks B.
"Oh, as to that," I reply, "I think what everyone who has seen the
play must think, that it is a marvellous piece of workmanship.
"Experienced professional stage-managers, with all the tricks and
methods of the theatre at their fingers' ends, find it impossible,
out of a body of men and women born and bred in the atmosphere of
the playhouse, to construct a crowd that looks like anything else
except a nervous group of broken-down paupers waiting for soup.
"At Ober-Ammergau a few village priests and representative
householders, who have probably never, any one of them, been inside
the walls of a theatre in their lives, dealing with peasants who
have walked straight upon the stage from their carving benches and
milking-stools, produce swaying multitudes and clamouring mobs and
dignified assemblages, so natural and truthful, so realistic of the
originals they represent, that you feel you want to leap upon the
stage and strangle them.
"It shows that earnestness and effort can very easily overtake and
pass mere training and technical skill. The object of the Ober-
Ammergau 'super' is, not to get outside and have a drink, but to
help forward the success of the drama.
"The groupings, both in the scenes of the play itself and in the
various tableaux that precede each act, are such as I doubt if any
artist could improve upon. The tableau showing the life of Adam and
Eve after their expulsion from Eden makes a beautiful picture.
Father Adam, stalwart and sunbrowned, clad in sheepskins, rests for
a moment from his delving, to wipe the sweat from his brow. Eve,
still looking fair and happy - though I suppose she ought not to, -
sits spinning and watching the children playing at 'helping father.'
The chorus from each side of the stage explained to us that this
represented a scene of woe, the result of sin; but it seemed to me
that the Adam family were very contented, and I found myself
wondering, in my common, earthly way, whether, with a little trouble
to draw them closer together, and some honest work to keep them from
getting into mischief, Adam and Eve were not almost better off than
they would have been mooning about Paradise with nothing to do but
talk.
"In the tableau representing the return of the spies from Canaan,
some four or five hundred men, women and children are most
effectively massed. The feature of the foreground is the sample
bunch of grapes, borne on the shoulders of two men, which the spies
have brought back with them from the promised land. The sight of
this bunch of grapes, we are told, astonished the children of
Israel. I can quite understand its doing so. The picture of it
used to astonish me, too, when I was a child.
"The scene of Christ's entry into Jerusalem surrounded by the
welcoming multitude, is a wonderful reproduction of life and
movement, and so also is the scene, towards the end, showing his
last journey up to Calvary. All Jerusalem seems to have turned out
to see him pass and to follow him, the many laughing, the few sad.
The people fill the narrow streets to overflowing, and press round
the spears of the Roman Guard.
"They throng the steps and balconies of every house, they strain to
catch a sight of Christ above each other's heads. They leap up on
each other's backs to gain a better vantage-ground from which to
hurl their jeers at him. They jostle irreverently against their
priests. Each individual man, woman, and child on the stage acts,
and acts in perfect harmony with all the rest.
"Of the chief members of the cast - Maier, the gentle and yet kingly
Christ; Burgomaster Lang, the stern, revengeful High Priest; his
daughter Rosa, the sweet-faced, sweet-voiced Virgin; Rendl, the
dignified, statesman-like Pilate; Peter Rendl, the beloved John,
with the purest and most beautiful face I have ever seen upon a man;
old Peter Hett, the rugged, loving, weak friend, Peter; Rutz, the
leader of the chorus (no sinecure, his post); and Amalie Deschler,
the Magdalen - it would be difficult to speak in terms of too high
praise. Themselves mere peasants - There are those two women again,
spying round our door; I am sure of it!" I exclaim, breaking off,
and listening to the sounds that come from the next room. "I wish
they would go downstairs; I am beginning to get quite nervous."
"Oh, I don't think we need worry," answers B. "They are quite old
ladies, both of them. I met them on the stairs yesterday. I am
sure they look harmless enough."
"Well, I don't know," I reply. "We are all by ourselves, you know.
Nearly everyone in the village is at the theatre, I wish we had got
a dog."
B. reassures me, however, and I continue:
"Themselves mere peasants," I repeat, "they represent some of the
greatest figures in the world's history with as simple a dignity and
as grand a bearing as could ever have been expected from the
originals themselves.
