ARTICLE IV.-THE LAST REPRESENTATION OF THE OBER-AMMERGAU PLAY-IN THE SUMMER OF

1880.

A LITTLE village lies hidden among the mountains of Bavaria. The dark red roofs of the houses are relieved against the vivid green of the valley, the walls are covered with frescoes, and from the windows gleams the bright scarlet of geraniums. Into it upon this Saturday afternoon throng countless numbers of people; peasant mothers, their black silk handkerchiefs bound tightly round their heads, their scarlet petticoats and red umbrellas a bright spot of color far down the street, their shoulders bowed with constant labor in the field; buxom daughters, too proud to adopt the peasant garb of their mothers and very vain of their fancied acquisition of city fashions. Peasants, lean and brown as the mother-earth they till, accompany them, and mingled with them are black-robed priests, German students fresh from the University, American lads eager for their vacation, and sturdy Englishmen with their air of condescension to nature and humanity.

Through the narrow stone-paved street pours the constant line of vehicles, white canvas-topped country wagons filled with peasants, well worn droschkes with the crowd from Munich, while all through the village rings a murmur as of the tower of Babel, at which the shadows seem to laugh as they steal quietly over their accustomed path up the mountains. What means it all, and whence comes it, that thus the nineteenth century pours its active life into this hidden valley?

Upon the edge of the village there stands a theatre. It is built of pine unpainted, and has for its ceiling the blue sky above it. At one end of the theatre is a stage, open over onehalf of its surface, and covered over the other with buildings representing the streets and temple of Jerusalem.

In this theatre, upon the morrow will be played the PassionSpiel, or the Holy Tragedy of the Saviour's suffering and crucifixion, and it is to witness this that this vast concourse is gath

ered here. Shall we mingle with them as they fill the bare benches, and witness the story of eighteen hundred years ago, as told by simple peasants of the nineteenth century?

Yet as we mingle with them we are not of them, for while we witness this play with minds filled with the prejudices and theories of the present age, the peasant nature has changed as little in all these years as the mountains which form so grand a back-ground to their simple scenery; and it is only by a knowledge of the early history of such dramas that we can understand the spirit in which they are given by these peasants of Ober-Ammergau.

The germ of these plays lay far back in an Easter custom of the early church. Upon Good Friday in the early Christian era, a crucifix was laid in a grave beneath the altar, and upon Easter morning it was raised with much rejoicing and song. A superstition arose among the people that whoever looked upon. this crucifix would live until the following year, and in consequence the throng in the churches became so great, that in 1316 an edict was issued by a Council at Worms, forbidding the presence of the parish at such a service.

Occasionally the women who came to anoint the Holy Dead and the angel who announced to them the resurrection, were personated. In a manuscript of the twelfth century these directions exist for the observance of this rite. "Two priests bearing crosses, and with veiled heads, enter the choir: soon they turn toward the sepulchre singing in a low tone, 'Who has rolled away the stone? Whom the deacon, who should be behind the sepulchre, also singing, answers 'Whom seek ye? They answer, 'Jesus of Nazareth.' The deacon replies, 'He

is not here.' They descend into the sepulchre and the deacon saying, 'Go announce it,' they turn towards the choir, and intone, Our Lord is risen from the grave.' The chant finished, the abbot begins the 'Te Deum Laudamus,' while the bells ring in all the church towers." Such was the simple and beautiful service, which in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ushered in Easter morning and was the germ of the Passion plays which were afterward to form so important a part in the ceremonies of the church.

It was not long before the apostles Peter and John were introduced, and soon the whole story of Christ's life was given. The number of actors and spectators rendered a larger stage necessary, and instead of the churches, the church-yards and soon the public squares were used, while the work of representation often interested a whole village.

France, which can claim precedence of Germany, both in the origin of these Passion plays, and in the skill with which they were produced, established in 1402 the "Confrères de la Passion," which society devoted itself to the worthy representation of Christ's suffering and death, while in many cities of Belgium two societies existed, which every year disputed a prize offered for the best Mystery Play. There was no price for entrance, but as a guild of Passion-playing brothers say in their prologues

"Wir wollen halten ein Oster spiel,

Das ist frölich, und kost nicht viel."

The expenses were defrayed by the tax which was levied upon each player as he received his part, the most important rôles demanding the highest tax. There were also fines for negligence at rehearsals.

In the earlier mystery plays the scenery was most simple, the different localities being simply indicated by cards, and much mention is made of an overturned cask which did duty as the Mount of Olives.

The part of the Precursor or Teacher was one of great im portance. In the play at Ober-Ammergau, this place is supplied by the leader of the chorus. It was he who recited the prologue, introduced the actors, and between the acts announced the meaning and subject of the next scene. Before the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries he personated an angel or the Saint Augustine, but after that time he appeared on horseback with horse and man in full armor.

These plays became afterward so national in character, that the life of the people effervesced and sparkled in them, and it is to this that we owe the burlesque elements, which have been entirely pruned from the play at Ober-Ammergau. The devil of the Middle Ages occupied the same place in these as the clown in the Elizabethan drama, and his pranks were the

subject of much amusement for the people. During the play his constant pursuit of those condemned, and his most fortunate escape from his own well-merited deserts, occasioned constant merriment. He was far more in the treatment of these dramatists the Mephistopheles of Faust, than the Lost Spirit of Milton.

When the Reformation shook all Europe, these plays became the battle-ground of the opposing forces, and many plays still exist written by Protestant pastors and acted by their people, in which the triumph of the new religion over Rome is portrayed, and in which the Pope appears in most ridiculous guise. Yet when the Reformation had cleared the minds of men, and nations had grown through childhood to manhood, they outgrew this manifestation of their faith, and little by little these dramas lost their hold upon the people, until like the snows which when hidden in quiet valleys escape the heat of summer, they are now only to be found in those corners of the earth which the sun of civilization has not reached.

Let us turn from one of these medieval dramas held with all pomp and splendor in the quaint market-place of some walled city, where the windows of the gabled houses are crowded with courtly knights and ladies who await the plumed and jeweled herald, who upon horse-back shall announce the beginning of the play, to this little pine-built theatre hidden in the Bavarian mountains, whose actors are the peasants and whose audience is the world. How happens it that these mountains have preserved this relic of a past civilization, as the rocks guard the imprint of a fern-leaf which fell many thousand years ago?

Yet let us dismiss from our mind the thought that what we witness here draws its interest alone from the fact that it is the work of simple peasants. It is because in Ober-Ammergau there have been minds keen and bright enough to bring the culture and the skill of Munich to bear upon the ductile nature of the peasantry, that we have so wonderful a representation here. Not upon any stage in Europe are masses grouped with more skill or managed with greater dexterity.

Never in Vienna, where the chorus is most celebrated, have I seen such perfect attention to minor details, and although the fact is reluctantly acknowledged by the peasants, it is the advice

of Munich artists, which has attained this result. It is only by this strange combination of the artistic skill of Munich and the simple unquestioning obedience and fervid faith of the peasantry of Ober-Ammergau, too far from the outside world to partake of its sympathies, that we are able to witness a Passion Play performed with the devotion of the middle ages and the dramatic skill of the nineteenth century.

The tradition of the village in regard to their play is this. In 1633 a pestilence ravaging the neighboring villages, finally reached the village of Ober-Ammergau, where eighty-three persons died of the plague. The villagers, assembling in great distress, made a solemn vow every ten years to perform this Passion play. Until the beginning of the present century they followed the ancient custom, and the play was not only performed in the church-yard, but many of its more absurd features were preserved, as the dance of the devils about Judas, after he has yielded to temptation. In the early part of this century, the whole play was revised by Father Ottmar Weiss, a member of the Benedictine Convent at Eltal, who removed all unsuitable passages. Father Weiss died in 1843, and since his death its constant improvement has been the life-work of the pastor of the parish, the present Geistlicher Rath Daisenberger. He is now a man of eighty-four, and his calm benignity and gracious presence show well why he is so much beloved by his people. It is to him more than to any one else that the Passion play owes its great success, and its freedom from all that can offend good taste. I saw him in his simple home, calmly benignant while a crowd of people urged their separate claims and interests, and wondered less at the beautiful simplicity of the people's life, with such an example before them. It is only when one has lived among these simple villagers that he realizes their utter devotion to their life-work. Entering a low-ceiled kitchen dimly lighted, with the stonepaved floor dark with the wear of years, I saw two flaxenhaired little children, one six, the other three. Addressing the elder, I said: "Spielest du im Passion - Spiele ?" She answered quickly: "Ja, gewiss." "Was spielest du denn?" "Ein Engelein." Whereupon her little brother who could hardly walk, tottled across the room, and folding his chubby hands,