The Magic Lantern Gazette - Library

Oberammergau Passion Play 7
some detail and often provided character sketches of the principal
actors in the play. This also was true of lantern slide lectures
on the Passion Play, whether given by professional lecturers
like John L. Stoddard and Burton Holmes, or by amateur
lecturers or ministers who may or may not have actually visited
the village. Most lantern slide sets, including the one I have
from 1910, included scenes of the village, some of the principal
houses, the parish church, and the Passion Play Theater.
Outside visitors to Oberammergau first began arriving in significant
numbers at about the time of the 1850 performance of
the play. At that time, the village was remote and difficult to
reach over bad roads. Travelers from Britain and the United
States who arrived in the village often reacted as if they had
come upon a Tolkienesque Shire full of Hobbits. Invariably
their accounts emphasized the isolated nature of the village and
usually described the villagers as “peasants” living a simpler
and more wholesome life than that of most modern Europeans.
18 The piety and integrity of the Oberammergau villagers
often was contrasted with the greed and materialism of modern
European and American societies. As late as 1922, one writer
described “the peasants’ purity of heart and simple goodness
that are everywhere reflected in their faces,” and referred to
Oberammergau as “one of the few spots in all the world where
faith and idealism have successfully withstood materialism and
commercial greed.” 19
today, some villages in this region are quite isolated—a recent
article in the New York Times reported on one village in the
Austrian Tyrol that still, in 2007, has no direct road connection
to the outside world. Nevertheless, certainly by 1880,
tourists were arriving in Oberammergau in large numbers, and
this turned into a flood by the end of the century, as roads
were improved and trains eventually reached the village itself.
Enterprising travel agents placed advertisements in Christian
magazines for package tours to the Holy Land, with side trips
to the Oberammergau Passion Play. These packages included
shipboard lectures, undoubtedly illustrated with lantern slides,
of the principal sights to be visited.
Advertisement for a travel package to the Holy Land, with a
side trip to the Oberammergau Passion Play. Shipboard lectures
were included, undoubtedly illustrated with lantern
slides. From Herald of Gospel Liberty, February 24, 1910.
Lantern slide of the children of Oberammergau, costumed for
their roles in the Passion Play of 1910. Photo by F. Bruckmann,
Munich. Lantern slide by T. H. McAllister, New York.
All of this was a bit of a myth, of course—Oberammergau
probably was not much more isolated or lost in time than
many other small villages in the Bavarian Alps in an era
where roads were almost universally terrible and the railroads
had not yet reached the smaller towns (direct rail connections
to Oberammergau did not arrive until 1900). Even
By the late 19 th century, Oberammergau more closely resembled
an artists’ colony than a peasant village. Oberammergau
had long been known for its exquisite wood carvings, and the
village had well-equipped school to teach younger villagers
the art of wood carving. Of the 63 major players listed by
name for the 1910 performance, 30 were described as either
carvers or sculptors, while Anton Lang was a potter by
trade. 20 The crafts created in Oberammergau were widely
marketed throughout Europe and even Australia and the
United States, often by villagers who traveled to distant cities
to serve as sales agents. The sale of crafts, both in the village
and elsewhere, provided a steady income for the villagers. 21
Terms such as “untutored peasants” or “simple peasants” that
often were applied to the villagers of Oberammergau are particularly
inappropriate in the case of Anton Lang, who spoke