Passion Play performed with passion

Oberammergau is the site of the famed Passion Play, first staged in 1634 and now performed every ten years (next in 2020). St Columba’s in the Parish of All Saints, Blackbutt South, is the home of amateur performers, “Bright Sparks”, under the capable and committed direction of Christine Williams.

Every second year (since 1992), Bright Sparks has presented a dramatisation of the Passion of Jesus, based on the gospel of Passion (Palm) Sunday. St Columba’s Church lends itself well to ‘roving players’ – or is it more a case of direction that takes account of the space available?

From the ominous feeling of the Garden of Gethsemane, to the turmoil of the ‘trial’ of Jesus and his sentencing to death, from the laboured carrying of the cross and falls of Jesus that reverberate through the church to the triumphant joy of the resurrection – there was no lack of passion and the experience was genuinely moving.

The difficulty in such a production is that it inevitably occurs in a condensed time frame, preceding the Church’s liturgical celebration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus. Arguably the most well-known productions, Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, eschew the Resurrection. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, for all its literary licence, portrayed the Resurrection, and so does the Bright Sparks ensemble.

There is a feeling of authentic joy when bright lights and white garments replace dim solemnity and a convincingly ‘blood-stained’ robe worn by Jesus (a remarkably focused Simon Heaney) before he is ‘nailed’ to

Article source: http://mnnews.today/local-church/2016/8838-passion-play-performed-with-passion/