An Analysis and Recommendation for Passion Play Written by Sarah Ruhl Essay

Passion Play, written by Sarah Ruhl, is an interesting triptych of three different productions of the Passion play, over three different time periods in three different locations. An interesting thing about this is that it is essentially three different plays put together, each with their own story and characters, although the same actors are used throughout the three and a half hour play. The play, which centers around a community who is putting on a passion play, has one continuous MDQ, although no singular protagonist. The MDQ of the play is then, Will the characters of the town get together to produce a successful passion play? However, this play does seem to revolve around the character who plays Pontius Pilate. The play was written to be three separate stories, but they all have a common through line in that they look at the political climate at the time through the lens of the people who perform in the passion play. The first act, set in Elizabethan England in 1575, when religious plays were banned. In this section, a visiting friar comes along, and supports the production of the passion play. The character who plays Pilate, a fish gutter, gets the woman who plays the Virgin Mary pregnant, although she wont admit having a child out of wedlock with someone of such low stature, so she proclaims that she is having a virgin baby. However, when everybody believes her, but Pilate knows the truth, she kills herself. Afterwards, Queen Elizabeth comes upon the town and stops the Passion play, as it is illegal in England at that time.In the second act, which takes place in Oberammergau, Germany before World War II, the character of Pilate is a German soldier. In this act, the character of Pilate is gay, and is in love with the character of Jesus. Through this section, it is interesting to note the differences in the passion play between the previous section and...

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