Evening Star Newspaper, December 29, 1929, Page 72

e = = . - THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, B. ®, DECEMBER 3, ®m. Nations of Earth Want No More Wars Erstwhile Top Sergeant in German Army, Who Takes Leading Role in Decennial Presentation of “Passion Play” at Ober=s ammergau, Convinced Common People Everywhere Desire Universal Peace. The famous Passion Play Theater. At top, left, is Guido Mayr, who will play the role of Judas, and at right, Aloys Lang, the newly elected Christus. BY H. K. KNICKERBOCKER. HE greatest theatrical hit in history, opened in 1634 and now entering its thirtieth season, the only show in the world that for 300 years has played to packed houses, is now going into re- hearsal for its 1930 presentation. The “Passion Play” of Oberammergau has re- ceived its new cast: the Christus is a former top sergeant in the German army; the Mary a stenographer from a local sawmill; the director is a student in dramatic technique; the theater is the most modern electrically operated open- air stage in the world; the local hotels are in- stalling bath rooms, and the Oberammegau City Council is confidently looking forward to 300,000 visitors from May to October next year. Oberammergau today is a beehive of activity, composed of businesslike attention to the manifold details of preparation for its greatest season and of reverent prayer to God that the players may carry out their parts in the true spirit of Christ, This combination of business and religion is difficult to analyze. Superficially, it sometimes appears as though the economic side of the “Passion Play” were going to have the upper hand. The less reverent neighbors of this vil- lage have expressed their feelings in the appel- lation “Oberammergauners” for the natives— “gauner” meaning swindler in German. Such animadversions, however, are a bit too acid. Personal contact with the players cone vinces one that a genuine spirit of devotion to their mission is a more important part of their psychology than their hope of material reward, ADOYS LANG, for example, the newly elected Christus, ran straight to the church when the news of his success reached him, and there, where no spectators witnessed his piety, first gave thanks to God. He then went to his home and resumed the supervision of its renovation for the tourists, who, now that he has been elevated to the most important “point of inter- est” in town. will favor his rooms to rent above all others, The young Lang—he is 38 years old, but Young in comparison to his predecessor, the 54- Yyear-old Anton Lang, of world-wide fame as the Christus of 1900, 1910 and 1922—is a personal- ity no less interesting than his fifty-second cou= sin, Anton. The Langs are the most numerous family in Oberammergau, and of its 2,200 in- hebitants several hundred bear their name. Re- lationship probably exists among them all, just @8 virtually every inhabitant of the village is related to every other inhabitant, but the dis- tance between Anton and Aloys is so great that they claim no kinship. Aloys, like Anton and like all the other male actors in the cast of the “Passion Play,” is a handworker. Anton was a potter; Aloys is a wood carver. I visited him in his workship, now being rebuilt in anticipation of the increased trade that will come to Oberammergau during the “Passion Play” season. His workshop and his home show cultivated artistic taste. Designed by himself, the house is a good example of the best type of Bavarian peacant architecture. Although Aloys Lang is 16 years younger than Anton znd is full of the active, inquiring spirit of this newer age, he is scarcely less mature than his ‘elder predecessor. Aloys is probably the most widely traveled and experienced man to play the role of Christus in the last half cen- tury. He is certainly the first warrior to enact the part of Christus in recent history, and the impression made upon him by his five years of army service has deeply affected his character. It has made him, he declares, more serious, more religious and profoundly pessimistic, He was sulll dressed in the black coat, striped hose, stiff collar and black tie that the leading men of the village affect on state occasions. It was a poor setting for his biblical head, long brown locks, chestnut beard and dark, earnest eyes. But when he began to talk his native dignity soon offset the incongruity of hig cos- tume. “I was five years on all fronts,” he said. “I became a top sergeant in the Bavarian sharp- shooters. I have seen much bloodshed and suf- fered some. I was wounded in France in an attack when we took a hill; had a splinter from a hand grenade in my back and lost a rib. That was in 1914, I returned to the front in 1915. “I tell you this,” he continued, fixing his large brown eyes with a half scowl on the un- Anni Rutz, 23-year-old stenographer, chosen to play the role of Mary. finished wooden figure of Christ in the vise of his workbench, “to show you that I know some= thing about that most fearful negation of Christianity in the world—war. Eighty-five men from Oberammergau went out to the front and never came back. When I went out E thought something might be done about man- kind, that something might be done to help them recover their senses. What I saw, though, only made me feel the hopelessness of it. “There is too much hatred among nations to be overcome, at least in our lifetime. I am absolutely convinced that the pedple theme selves, the common people, did not want the war, not in this country nor in any other. They never want war, but the ypper 10,000, who dee cide what is to be done in all cases, made the war., And the war made hatreds even among the common people.” HE paused to chip a drop of glue from the crucifix upon which he had been working, “For part of the war,” he said, “I was down in the Balkans. You have no idea how those people hate each other., The Rumanians hate the Serbs, the Serbs hate the Italians, the Hun- garians hate the Rumanians, the Bulgarians hate the Serbs, and so on; a dreadful pot of hate that simmers year in and year out, always ready to boil over. You see, I have witnessed much hatred. Christ suffers from it. I will portray a suffering Christ. “But,” he qualified, “I must say that the war not only made hatreds, but it made God-fearing men, too. It all depended on the circum- stances. I know that in my own battalion I have seen dozens of men who never thought of God turn to Him in the hour of battle. “We all feel that our work in the ‘Passion Play’ is an extremely important religious duty, one that means a great deal for the whole Christian world. I used to play only a small part, that of Nathaniel; but I, just as every one else, from the Christus to the doortender, felt that the play was a glorification of God. “I know from my own personal experience how powerful an instrument for the inculca= tion of religion the ‘Passion Play’ can be. Often I have seen spectators who came to mock re- main to pray. Those whom I could see sitting in the front rows in the forenoon, laughing be- hind their programs and scoffing, would be weeping before the evening came. That is the effect of the ‘Passion Play.’” These remarks of Lang are typical of the ate titude of Oberammergau toward its “Passion Play.” However many evidences of commer= cialization may appear upon the surface—and these are inevitable—the villagers' themselves are indubitably imbued with that same deeply religious feeling that manifested itself 300 years wgo, when their forefathers pledged themselves and all the generations after them to play the passion of Christ once every 10 years if the Lord would save them from the plague then sweeping the highlands in the wake of the Thirty Years' War. The plague was stayed and Obermmergau has kept its vow. SILDOM has a promise been more potent, Oberammergau has resembled through the last three centuries a sort of wy weligious come munity scarcely less devoted to the glorification Continued on Seventh Page