Pa
ssion through the ages
by Carla Neuss, Dramaturg
Few playwrights choose to tackle 400 years of history in one evening of theatre. Sarah Ruhl is one of them. Passion Play was Ruhl’s first play and was written over a period of fourteen years, spanning her time as an undergraduate at Brown University through to her recognition as one of the great playwrights of this generation.
Passion Play travels from rural England (in 1575) to Bavaria, Germany (in 1934) to Spearfish, South Dakota (in 1969). Each of these places really did (or continues to) put on a dramatic version of the biblical narrative. Originated with the purpose of sharing the biblical story with illiterate populations, passion plays (or mystery plays as they were also called) are the longest running pieces of theatre in history. This form of theatre became a fixation for Ruhl when she wondered about the lives of the actors that played scriptural roles year after year. The resulting play is an epic journey through key historical and political moments, moments when the lives of the actors, the society they live in and the political era they inhabit all start to blur together.
As Ruhl says in her preface to the play, “It is not that the play you are about to see is a political treatise – not at all – but it does provide us with another occasion to be in one room together as we continue to meditate on the relationship of community to political icons. And to meditate on what we can do to affect change in very solemn times indeed.”
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