Drama and Processions
Non-musical settings of the Passion story are generally called Passion plays; these have been very widely performed in traditionally Catholic countries, often in churches as liturgical dramas - for versions with musical settings, see the previous section. One famous cycle is performed at intervals at Oberammergau Germany, and another in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco uses what is considered the largest open-air theater in the world. The Passion figures among the scenes in the English mystery plays in more than one cycle of dramatic vignettes. In the Chester Mystery Plays' portrayal of Christ's Passion, specifically his humiliation before his sentence to crucifixion, the accounts of the Gospels concerning the physical violence visited on Jesus during his trial before the Sanhedrin, and the humiliating crowning of thorns visited upon him in Pilate's palace (or by Herod's soldiers, according to Luke), is further confused by showing both actions as being carried out by jeering Jews.
Processions on Palm Sunday commonly re-enact to some degree the entry of Jesus to Jerusalem; traditional ones often using special wooden donkeys on wheels. Holy Week in Spain retains more traditional public processions than other countries, with the most famous, in Seville featuring floats with carved tableaux showing scenes from the story.
There have also been a number of films telling the passion story, with a prominent recent example being Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. A tradition linked to icons of Jesus holds that Veronica was a pious woman of Jerusalem who gave her kerchief to him to wipe his forehead. When he handed it back to her, the image of His face was miraculously impressed upon it.
Read more about this topic: Passion (Christianity)
Famous quotes containing the words drama and/or processions:
“By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“It is difficult to believe that even idiots ever succumbed to such transparent contradictions, to such gaudy processions of mere counter-words, to so vast and obvious a nonsensicality ... sentence after sentence that has no apparent meaning at all—stuff quite as bad as the worst bosh of Warren Gamaliel Harding.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)