Passion Play

In the 17th century, the citizens of Oberammergau made a covenant with God. If he halted the plague, they would reenact The Passion of Christ every ten years for eternity. When the deaths ceased, in 1634, the villagers fulfilled their promise and the first Passion Play was staged. Regine Petersen’s (DE) combination of image and text takes as its starting point Adolf Hitler’s attendance of Oberammergau’s tricentennial Jubilee in 1934. Her narrative unfolds on two levels: that of the world’s most prominent Passion Play and its inherent antisemitism, and that of daily life in the National Socialist village. Composed as an allegorical tale with satirical nuances, Passion Play is a virtuosic reprisal of History’s passions for propaganda, populism and moral corruption in their shifting albeit ubiquitous manifestations.