Abstract
This study deals with expressions of Christʼs Passion, the most touching theme in Christian belief, in the Passion plays (＝Pps) and the Corpus Christi plays (＝CCps). Each Passion scene should be treated from the standpoints of both producers and receivers (i.e., creators/authors, organisers, players and spectators) of the plays, in order to investigate all the possible ways of understanding the thematic transmission and reception of what they handle. Discussions here centre on the Crucifixion scenes in the Frankfurt Passion Play and the Künzelsau Corpus Christi Play, and compare them to the same scene in the York Cycle Play, as the single (strictly defined) CCp in England.
It is generally difficult to distinguish between Pps and CCps in the German-speaking area. Both Pps and CCps treat similar biblical episodes; both have their origin in liturgical ceremonies, and apply the same expressive medium called “Spiel/play”. The differentiation, however, seems worth attempting, as far as the Passion scenes are concerned, when their dramatic features are compared from the above-mentioned standpoints. Briefly, the Pps stress the tragic nature in the experience of Jesusʼ sufferings as reality, whereas the CCps have a festive nature brought by their symbolic representation of the Redemption, even in their realistic productions.
I pay special attention to the mental as well as the physical attitudes of Jesus and his Passion taken by the producers and the receivers of each play. The results of their applications, i. e., their mental/physical attitudes to what they represent, are, nevertheless, different. These differences appear, on the one hand, in their psychological and social reactions, but on the other hand, in the interpretative and technical limits of their producers and receivers. The final directionalities of both types of plays in the 16th century, to their survival, fusion, or decline, must have been decided by the demands derived from their productive and/or receptive reactions and limits.
The German Pps then survived the Reformation and were even adopted by the Protestants, although they generally did not welcome the dramatisation of the Holy Scriptures. The CCps as dramatic performance fused with the Pps in some German Catholic cities. Otherwise they disappeared totally, whereas their origin, the Corpus Christi procession, is celebrated in many Catholic cities even today. A remarkable reason for the survival of the Pps in Protestant Germany could well be argued by the fact that the demand to be directly in touch with Jesus, i.e., the attitude expressed in the Pps, was the ideal also of the Protestants to Jesusʼ Passion.
