A Story About A Passion Play Gone Wrong

I wanted to relay this story I heard the preacher at camp tell about when he went to see a passion play and the rather severe problems they had during the production. I'll do my best to remember all the details since it's been a few weeks since I originally heard it.

As you may know, a passion play is a story concerning the last week of Jesus' life on earth culminating in at least the crucifixion, if not the resurrection as well. Jesus Christ Superstar is a musical passion play, and Passion of the Christ is probably the most well know movie version of the story (as well as the bloodiest, only missing an NC-17 rating because of the subject material).

So, he was watching this passion play, and they reach the crucifixion part where Jesus was hanging on the cross. The actor was actually tied up to this cross and his final line is of course, "It is finished!" after which he bows his head, and the guards come out to stick the spear in his side, and then carry on. Well, after his line, he died and nothing happened. Apparently, the guards missed the cue and never showed. Jesus did the only thing a good Jesus can do in such an instance. He resurrected himself and cried out, more dramatically, "It is finished!" after which he bowed his head again and died. noting that the guards had not arrived, Jesus resurrected himself a second time, and cried out even louder and with more drama, "IT ... IS ... FINISHED!" after which, he died again.

By this time, the guards had apparently realized that they had missed their cue, and so they grabbed their spears and charged out to take care of business. Now, in order to achieve the effect of stabbing the spear in Jesus' side, the spear had a collapsible tip so that the Jesus actor would not be injured and real blood and water would not flow. Well, in their haste, the tardy guards grabbed one of the real spears and not the rigged-to-collapse one, and as they were in a hurry to catch up to their missed cue, they gave Jesus a hearty stab in the side ... where blood and water flowed. Jesus, was a really trooper, though, because the only way you knew anything was wrong was when he breathed in sharply through his teeth and clenched his fists.

Realizing they had actually stabbed Jesus, the guards rapidly got him off the cross and carried him backstage.

So for the resurrection scene, they pulled in second-string Jesus, as first-string Jesus had not had enough time to heal. The scene went on as planned, and at the end of the scene, they had this dramatic ascension whereby second-string Jesus was rigged to a tree behind the stage and slowly ascends into the branches ... or that was the plan. You see, rigs of this nature are carefully counter-balanced to the weight of the individual who is to be using it, and it turns out that first-string Jesus weighed a bit more than second-string Jesus. He told his disciples, "Surely, I am with you, to the very end of the a--" and the rig kicked in and pulled Jesus at blinding speed into the branches of the tree knocking second-string Jesus right out.

Fortunately, they didn't need a third-string Jesus because the play was quite over by that point.

Roaring River

So I'm posting for the sake of posting. What should I write about? Don't really know, but I do know that once again, I want to write on a daily basis on this blog. The trouble is that everything that happens, happens so quickly that it's difficult to keep it up and write it down. I have an app on my phone to also blog, but again, taking those few moments to sit down and type it all out is difficult. I figure it is just best to write about whatever is happening, so here goes.

Over the recent July 4th weekend, we went out of town with the Queen's family to Missouri, since her parents and grandparents have fifth wheel spots in the Roaring River State Park area where we also go fishing. I really don't like to fish. The Queen's grandfather has been having some heart related issues, and he has always been the one to "clean" (odd word for skin, gut, chop, and fillet fish) the fish for everyone. I refuse, so my brother-in-law, aka Darth Vader, volunteered to be the one to do it. He did a good job.

He and Padme then suggested we head over to Branson to a shopping center called Branson Landing so they could shop for a particular toy for Luke that they can only get there. The store is called Ridemasterz, or something, and is basically like Build-a-Bear with cars. You pick your chassis and customize it till your heart's content. They invited everyone to go as well, and then they took the longest road possible to get there (in total deference to both our GPS and theirs). We had the "privilege" of sitting through the longest five miles I've ever had to sit through to take in the horror that is Branson, MO.

We called it "Little Vegas" just based on how it was setup and the sorts of sights we took in during that five mile stretch. We had a lot of time to look while parked in traffic. If Vegas is where old stars go to wind out their careers with a steady job, Branson is where they go to die. We saw billboards for artists that seriously made their careers in the 50's. Bill Haley, for example, who is best known for the song "Rock Around The Clock" that came out in 1954. Yeah, he's still performing...in Branson. Also saw a theatre that does concerts of "The Legends" such as Garth Brooks, Liza Minelli, Stevie Wonder...Elvis and Michael Jackson. Oh yeah, they are all impersonators. The real artists don't perform in that theatre. No, when you watch "The Legends," you are watching a bunch of people sing and perform like the actual artists. And this wasn't the only Elvis show either. No, I saw at least three Elvis shows on that strip. In addition, if you're down with the old time photos, you have lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of choices of studios. Heck, there were two of them in the shopping center we went to. There were a couple of interesting amusement parks, but other than that (not to be overly negative) it really seemed like one of the most pointless places I've ever been to.

However, this shopping center had a candy store where we were able to call Rock Girl on something she said once. She said if she could get some Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, she would try them. Well, the Harry Potter promo item was made by Jelly Belly, and if their buttered popcorn flavor tastes that accurate, I shudder to think of the vomit flavor. Anyway, this store did not have Bertie Bott's, but they did have some every flavor beans with flavors like puke, booger, skunk spray, curdled cheese, and other equally bizarre and stomach turning choices. Rock Girl declined. So we got Margarita, Strawberry Daquiri, and Piña Colada instead. They were good.

The main lesson we learned from this weekend's experience was that we really need to get the princesses more practice playing Uno, Skip-Bo, and Phase 10.

Oh, and the resort we stayed at had unadvertised Wi-Fi that we totally jumped on.