The Magic Lantern Gazette - Library

Oberammergau Passion Play 10
twelve prostrate women.... This lecture was repeated over two
hundred times, and whenever it was given, approximately the
same number of women succumed. 33
Taylor went on to state that “This dramatic performance had
one unexpected result. Through it scores of people came to
believe in Christ and the Father for the first time, and hundreds
found their drooping faith revived.” 34 Oddly enough,
attending the Oberammergau Passion Play did not seem to
have the same effect on Stoddard himself, who throughout his
career as a lecturer was a self-professed agnostic. Only late in
life, many years after retiring from the lecture circuit, did
Stoddard finally convert to Catholicism. His book on his conversion
from agnosticism to Catholicism makes no mention of
his many trips to Oberammergau or any effect the play might
have had on his religious views. 35
Illustration of the remorse of Judas from the 1880 performance
of the Oberammergau Passion Play, from a lantern slide.
From John L. Stoddard, Red Letter Days Abroad (1884). The
publication of this book preceded the widespread use of halftone
illustrations, so Stoddard had to use engravings to represent
his lantern slides.
Stoddard’s lectures undoubtedly induced many in his audiences
to make their own trips to Oberammergau, and they reached
many others who never traveled to Europe themselves.
Stoddard routinely lectured to sold-out crowds in the largest
theaters in New York and other cities, and by one estimate, a
half million people attended his Oberammergau lectures, about
double the number of people who attended performances of the
play every ten years. According to his biographer, D. Crane
Taylor, his Oberammergau lecture “produced in some cases an
overpowering emotional effect.” 31 A highlight of the lecture
was the use of dissolving views to produce the illusion of motion
during Christ’s last moments on the cross, which his biographer
inaccurately described as “the first motion picture.” 32
His somewhat overblown description of this part of the lecture
and its effect on the audience is as follows:
As Stoddard worked toward this climax the screen held a realistic
picture in colors of Christ upon the cross, his upright head
surmounted by a crown of thorns. When Stoddard slowly and
quietly pronounced the words “The head drooped wearily upon
the breast” his audience actually saw Christ’s head drop forward.
No conspiracy of ear and eye had ever before produced
realism comparable to this. The effect upon the audience was
tremendous. The silence of the darkened house was broken by
hundreds of sobs, some hysterical. Ushers moved forward in
the aisles and at every performance carried out from five to
Lantern slide of the kiss of Judas, from the 1910 performance of
the Oberammergau Passion Play. Photo by F. Bruckmann, Munich.
Lantern slide by T. H. McAllister, New York.
Burton Holmes Takes Over
In 1897, John L. Stoddard abruptly retired from the lecture circuit
without any prior announcement and moved to Europe,
where he spent the rest of his life, never to give another lantern
slide performance. He recommended to his managers that his
replacement on the travelogue lecture circuit should be Burton
Holmes, a younger man just beginning his long career. Holmes
had actually first met Stoddard when he found himself sitting
next to the famous lecturer at the 1890 performance of the
Oberammergau Passion Play, and the two men became close
friends. Holmes returned to Oberammergau every ten years for
new performances and generally made a point of visiting
Stoddard while he has in Europe. He soon developed his own
lantern slide lecture on Oberammergau and the Passion Play,
which later appeared in the 5 th volume of his published lectures.