Oberammergau Passion Play

Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr., is a professional actor and director whose previous books have covered topics ranging from Star Wars to Renaissance faires. He is a professor and chair of the theater department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California.

“fills something of a gap, there are surprisingly few serious scholarly engagements with Oberammergau...Wetmore has gathered essays that probe the history, aesthetics, and cultural analogues and resonances of the Bavarian pageant...well-researched discussion of the US reception and reimaginings of the play...recommended”—Choice.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: ­Forty-First in the ­Twenty-First (Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.)Part 1. Oberammergau 2010: ResponsesThe Role of Their Lives, or Jesus on a Bike: Oberammergau on Stage and Off (Glenn Ehrstine)“What’s a nice Jewish boy like you doing in a Catholic play like this?”: Oberammergau 2010 and Religious Identity (Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.)Dialectical Aesthetics of Change and Continuity in the 2010 Oberammergau Passion Play (Sharon ­Aronson-Lehavi)Part 2. Comparative OberammergausSpiritual Voyeurism and Cultural Nostalgia: Anglophone Visitors to the Oberammergau Passion Play, 1870–1925 and 2010 (Joshua Edelman)Atemporality in the Heidelberg Passion Play, the Passion Play of Oberammergau and Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play: A Cycle (Jutta Eming)Tableaus and Selves in Vrindavan and Oberammergau (David Mason)Oberammergau in America/America in Oberammergau (Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr.)Part 3. InterviewsAn Interview with Frederik Mayet (Actor, Christ) (David Mason)Passion Playing: An Interview with Sarah Ruhl on the Shaping Influence of Oberammergau (Jill Stevenson)Conclusion: ­Forty-Second in the ­Twenty-First: Oberammergau 2020Works CitedAbout the ContributorsIndex