Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 507
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 507]
(38)
Passion Pay on an open-air stage, and lasting most of the following day, with a two-hour midday interval. The actors and actresses are all local citizens, and in the scene that depicts Christ being harried by the mob in the street it is said that nearly every grown male in the town appears, long hair and beards being specially grown for the occasion. When I revisited the place six months afterwards not a beard was to be seen.
The acting, costuming and simple stage settings were excellent. A dozen (or so) tableaux from the Old Testament interspersed the main story of the Passion, which was spoken in German and to enable people unfamiliar with this language to follow it, small brown-covered translations in English and other tongues were provided: the tableaux were silent acts. Although the stage was not covered, the audience was sheltered by a high curved roof, with walls at sides and rear end only.
Next morning when the pilgrimage embussed to go father north to attend an Ecumenical gathering at Munich, I boarded another coach travelling in the opposite direction back to Innsbruck to catch the afternoon train passing through the lovely lakes and mountains of South Austria, the length of Jugoslavia and Greece to Athens; a long trip lasting thirty five hours. I resided in hotels at Piraeus and Athens for most of August during very hot dry weather, making long coach tours to Corinth, Mycenae and Argos, to the ancient intact theatre at Epidaurus, still in use, and to Delphos, site of the famous oracle.
Towards the end of my stay Bill Chisholm flew out from England to join me. Three days later we embarked on a fine new little Turkish liner in the late afternoon and arrived at Istanbul exactly two days later, having spent ten hours of daylight at Smyrna, the ancient Ephesus, en route. There we interviewed the very helpful British Consul who contacted the Major in charge of the British War Graves on the Gallipoli Peninsular, who resided at Chanakkale on the mainland and who agreed to meet us there and put his motor launch and Land Rover