Guidelines for Dramatizing the Passion of the Lord
Summary
prepared by Ms. Celia Sirois
For complete text, Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations
of the Passion, see:
http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/documents/catholic/Passion_Plays.htm
Since the Middle Ages, dramatizing the Passion of Jesus has been, for
Christian teachers, an effective way of conveying the central mystery of
the faith. Such productions, however, combining as they do theological
reflection and historical reconstruction in an artistic form, must be undertaken
with due caution. The same dramatic power that makes them able to impart
the extent of Christ’s love so effectively can as forcefully serve
to impute to all Jews of all time the responsibility for Christ’s
death. Mindful of this, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
has, in a number of documents*, offered practical guidelines for dramatizing
the Passion of Jesus. What follows is a digest of their directives, which
apply as well to the Stations of the Cross.
-
The overriding preoccupation of any dramatization of the Passion
must be, in the words of Ellis Rivkin, not who killed Christ,
but what killed Christ, namely, our sins.
-
Those scripting a Passion play
must use the best available biblical
scholarship to elucidate the gospel texts which were not written
to preserve historical facts so much as to proclaim the saving
truth about Jesus.
-
Harmonizing the four accounts of Jesus’ Passion — i.e.
constructing a single story of the Passion by combining elements
from the four gospel versions — risks violating the integrity of
the texts, each of which offers a distinct theological interpretation of
Jesus ’ death.
-
Because of the nature of the gospels, the choice of what gospel passages
to use in the making of a Passion play must be guided by the
Church’s
teaching that “the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed
by God as if this followed from Sacred Scripture” (Nostra Aetate
4). The claim that a passage is “in the Bible” does not
suffice to justify its inclusion.
-
As ignorance of Judaism often leads to
misinterpretation of events, the complexity of the Jewish world
of Jesus must be carefully researched
and correctly represented; e.g., it is important to know that the
high priest was appointed by the Roman procurator.
-
Crowd scenes
must represent this rich diversity and reflect a range of responses
to Jesus among the crowd as among their leaders.
-
The Jewishness
of Jesus and his followers must be taken seriously. They must
be portrayed as Jews among Jews and not set apart by means
of costuming or makeup.
-
Stereotypes of Jews and Judaism (e.g. depicting
Jews as avaricious) must be avoided. [This is especially important
in portraying Judas,
whose name means Jew, and who is given money for betraying Jesus.]
-
The
Pharisees are not mentioned in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ Passion
and therefore should not be depicted as responsible for his death.
The Jews most directly implicated in the death of Jesus are the
Temple priests.
-
Roman soldiers should be on stage throughout the play
to keep
before the audience the pervasive and oppressive reality of Roman
occupation.
-
Problematic passages, like Matthew’s “his blood be
on us and on our children” (27:25), that can be misconstrued as blaming
all Jews of all time for the death of Jesus, should be omitted. As
a general rule in these cases, the Bishops suggest that “if one cannot
show beyond reasonable doubt that the particular gospel element selected
or
paraphrased will not be offensive or have the potential for negative
influence on the audience for whom the presentation is intended, the element
cannot,
in good conscience, be used” (“Criteria,” p. 12).
* This is a digest of the Bishops’ teaching. Pertinent documents
of the USCCB are “God’s Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on
the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching” (1988)
and “Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion” (1988).
|
