THE LIFE OF CHRIST

Open Air Passion Play at Wintershall Estate

03.07.10

Jesus, Pilate, Melchior, Lazarus and the rest are having a year off in 2011. Wintershall's Life of Christ was devised to celebrate the Millennium, and proved so popular that it's been revived annually every since.

Technically, it's a huge undertaking. Four acting areas, the audience shepherded from one to another, near-perfect sound re-enforcement, stage manager crouched at the front of the seating area, cue-ing every entrance and every effect. And there were some superb moments, most memorable perhaps the Masacre of the Innocents, with Herod's seven horsemen galloping over the brow of the hill and bearing down on the distraught mothers to the sound of Britten's Storm at Sea.

Animals are always scene-stealers, of course, and we also had donkeys, pigeons flying free after Jesus purges the Temple,a live draught of fishes, and a whole flock of sheep, complete with dog, for the Shepherds.

The big set-pieces worked best, with hordes of colourful extras running everywhere. The feeding of the 5000, just before the all-too-short picnic break in the middle of the day, was very moving, with the audience involved in the friendliest way.

James Burke-Dunsmore, who's made something of a career of playing the Saviour, was an engaging Jesus, managing to achieve an intimate sincerity at a huge distance. Philip Street and Ashley Herman were the Evangelist storytellers. The hundreds of other actors were almost all amateurs, from Jules Robinson as a feisty Virgin to young Aaron Yates as the boy who'd remember his packed lunch.

Peter Hutley's script is unashamedly proselytising, and many of the 3000 or so in the crowd were on a Church awayday. There was a prayer tent, too, as well as the food vans and portaloos.

But it worked well as drama; largely because of the painstaking, perfectionist production: Ashley Herman directed, with Peter Hutley producing. We are promised another revival in 2012, no doubt with some tweaks and changes, but I'm sure the spirit and the spirituality of this amazing drama will survive.

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