The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-01-23
THE JOYOUS COMRADE.
BY /. NGwILL

moonlight. And 1 tell you 1 was mighty
glad when 1 limped across the bridge
over the rushing river and dropped on
the hotel sofa Next morning l was
stiff as a poker, but 1 struggled up the
four rickety flights to the local physi-
clan, and being assured 1 only wanted
rest, 1 resolved to AXE it with book
n pipe aud mug in a shady beer
garden on the river. l had been read
ing for about an hour, when five or six
Tyrolese, old men and young, in their
gray and green costumes ana their lit
tie hats, trooped in and occupied the
large table near the I'M door Present.
ly 1 was startled by the sound OF -he
either; they began to sing songs; the
pretty daughter of the house came and
Joined in the singing. 1 put down my
book.
THE old lady who had served me
with my Mass of beer, seeing my in
terest, came over and chatted about
her guests. Oh, no, they were not viii
layers; they came from four hours
away. The slim one was a school
teacher, and the dicker was a tenor
and sang in the chorus of the Passion
Spiel; the go~od-looking young man
was to be the st. John. Passion Playi
l pricked up my ears. When? Where?
In their own ~village-three days hence
only given once every ten years-for
hundreds and hundreds of years. Could
strangers see it? What should strang-
ers a to see it for? But could they
see it? Gewiss. This was Indeed a
stroke of luck. I had always rather
wanted to see the Passion Play, but
the thought of the fashionable Ober-
ammergau made me sick. Would I
like to be vorgestellet? Rather. 1t was
not ten minutes after this introduce
ton before 1 had settled to stay with
st. John, n clouds of good American
tobacco were rising from six Tyrolese
pipes and many an 'auf Ihr WohI' was
busying the pretty Kellnerinn. They
trotted out all their repertory of quaint
local songs for my benefit-it sounded
bully, I tell YOU, out there with the
sunlight and the green leaves and the
rush of the river-and in this aroma
of beer and brotherhood l blessed my
damaged thigh. Three days hencel
Just time for it to heal. A providential
world, after all.
And it was indeed with a buovant
step and a gay heart that 1 set out
over the hills at sunrise on that mem
orable morning. The play was to be-
gin at 10, and I should just be on
time. What a walki Imagine it, Clear
GOODNESS of dawn, fresh, green spark
ling dew: the road winding UP and
down, round hills, VI cliffs, along val
leys, through woods where the green
branches swayed in the morning wind
and dappled the green Enthusiastically
with dancing sunlight. And as fresh
as the morning, a 1 felt, the artistic
sensation awaiting me. l swung round
the last hill shoulder, saw the quaint
gables of the first house peeping
through the trees, the church spire ris-
ing beyond; hen groups of Tyrolese,
converging from all the roads dipped
down the valley, past the quiet lake,
up the hills beyond, found myself
caught in a stream of peasants, and,
prestoi was sucked from the radiant
day into the deep gloom of the barn
like theatre.
Il don't know how it is done in Ober-
ammergau, but this Tyrolese thing was
a strange tumble of art and naivete, of
talent and stupidity. There was a full
hedged stage and footlights, n the
scenery, someone said, was painted by
a man from Munich. But the players
were badly made up; the costumes, if
correct, were ill-fitting; the stage badly
lighted; and the flats didn't 'jine.'
Some of the actors a CLEANS of ar
tistic perception. st. Mark was beau
tiful to look on; Caiaphas had a sense
of e%locution; the Virgin was tender and
sweet, and Judas rose powerfully to
his great 20-minutes' soliloquy. But
the bulk of the players, though all were
earnest and ~fervent, were clumsy or
self-conscious. The crowds were stiff
and awkward, painfully symmetrical,
like school children at drill. A chorus
OF 10 or u ushered in each episode with
song, and a man further explained it
in bald narrative. The acts of the play
proper were interrupted by tableaux
vivants of Old Testament scenes from
Adam and Eve UPWARDS. There was
much, you see. that was puerile. even
ridiculous; and every now and then
someone would open the door of the
dusky auditorium, and a shaft of sun
shine would fly in from the outside
world to remind me further how I'M
real vas all this gloomy ~make-believe.