A Passion Play

This doesn’t go without the story to explain why I chose the gospel song rather than the Whitney Houston song.

When we moved to Zimbabwe in 1995 I heard of a planned passion play in honour of the 100th anniversary of St John’s Highschool in Harare. I am not religious but I really wanted to be part of a huge outdoor theatre production. Casting was already completed but I thought if I spoke to the director I might still get the fourth Jewess on the right or a similar part as an extra. As it turned out, the director offered me the job of assistant director and it was a wonderful experience. Within hours, I met 300 new people, 200 actors and 100 backstage crew, as well as 2 police horses, 4 donkeys, 9 goats and 2 camels, called Stoffel and Stella, on a working visa from South Africa.

The title of the passion play was “No greater love – a passion play”. It was videotaped and I cherish it to this day.

On a (very funny) side note, we took the tape with us to Germany and it got stopped at customs. We were suspected of importing forbidden pornographic material from darkest Africa. The customs officials must have misread the term “passion play” (although it’s the same word in German) in connection with “love”. After a few days we were allowed to collect the tape and it was handed to us without comment. Somehow I imagine a very red-faced censor who stopped the control screening after the first few minutes when Jesus came walking into the school grounds / Jerusalem leading a donkey (he wasn’t riding the donkey – but that is another story).

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: No Greater Love