Dean, Again, very nice cards and that note is a great find with "death" representing the plague or the black death as we know it. It was during the Thirty Years War that the Black Death broke out in parts of Europe and actually the towns people of Oberammergau guarded there village and kept it safe for some time. It was during their annual fair held to commemorate the dedication to the village church that a man named Kasper Schisler who lived in the village but worked outside the town during the summer months decided to sneak back into the village and bring death with him. And of course back then they new nothing about germs, so in their minds they thought up all sorts of incredible reasons to explain away the cause of so much death and suffering. Some pretty wild stories believe me.
These vows which Bill briefly discussed were quite common during this time in Bavaria and Austria. From 1600 to 1650 there were about forty villages in Bavaria and Austria that performed a passion play and from 1500 to 1800 around two hundred and fifty.
As stated the first play was in 1634 but it wasn't until the year 1680 that they decided to perform the play during the first year of every decade and I haven't found out why it was changed. There were continuations and postponements of plays for various reasons such as the case in 1800 due to the Napoleonic wars which caused a drop in their viewing audience so they held a special play the following year in 1801. During the earlier years of the Passion Plays they had to get permission to perform, sometimes with conditions added on. In 1810 that permission was denied but was granted in 1811. There was a special performance in 1815 after the Napoleonic wars and a continuation of the 1870 play in 1871 due to it's war with France. And in 1920 the play was postponed until 1922 due to WWI. Your voucher/gift certificate or coupon note used during the 1922 Passion Play?, dated 1921 is a great historical reminder to the people of Oberammergau of what happened in the past and not forget there vow or death can return. The only years that the curtain didn't rise for this play was 1770 and 1940, otherwise pretty much uninterrupted.
The men stop cutting hair and beards about a year out and many of the actors are shop owners or workers so during a break in the play they open their shops for us tourists, so its nice to meet them. They double up on the main characters as well and when I saw the fortieth Passion Play performed, there were 1,600 adults and 550 children involved. If you haven't been you should go. And you can still find great package deals as well!
