Introductions for Traditional Christmas Plays

GA 274 — 25 December 1923, Dornach

Introduction

during the founding meetings of the General Anthroposophical Society.

Yesterday I took the liberty of saying a few words about the historical origin of the plays that we are performing for you here during this Christmas Conference. Today I would just like to add something about the way these plays were performed in the Hungarian German colonies at the time when Karl Julius Schröer found them there in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The plays were the handwritten property of the most respected families in the village, so to speak. And they were performed from the village in which they were available, in neighboring villages within a radius of two to three hours. When the grape harvest was over in the fall, around the middle or end of October, the village's farming dignitaries would meet and discuss – not every year, but when fate would have it, I would say. The school teacher, who was also the notary, was not present; he kept to the intelligentsia, and the intelligentsia disdained these plays. But the farmers, after a few years when the plays were not performed for some reason, then said: Well, it wouldn't hurt our young boys if they had something better to do at Christmas time! And then they discussed whether there were any real men around who could be used to play. A list was put together. But then, when the men were asked if they wanted to play, and if they were chosen to play, they were subject to a number of strict conditions.

It says a lot for these areas that the boys – think about it, the whole time from October to Christmas and Epiphany – were not allowed to get drunk, were not allowed to go to the Dirndl and what we certainly cannot do here, had to obey absolutely the one who rehearsed the matter with them. Now, if we were to demand something like that, the other players would be very annoyed with us!

So these exercises were carried out with extraordinary diligence for weeks, during which the plays were rehearsed. But there was something else we could not do. Whoever forgot something or did something badly had to pay a half-kreuzer fine. Well, we can't do that either, we can't impose penalties for forgetting! And so these exercises were carried out in the strictest way until the first Sunday of Advent. Because on Advent Sunday they already started playing the 'Paradeis' play, which you saw yesterday. At Christmas there was the 'Christ-Birth' play and around January 6th there was the play that will be shown here in the next few days.

The arrangement of the play – I already mentioned some of it yesterday – was that the boys gathered and dressed up at the teacher's house, and from there they went to the inn where the performance took place. But the devil had already been sent away earlier. You saw him yesterday too. He was equipped with a cow horn and did something that we, on the other hand, cannot imitate, because he blew into each window. Perhaps the people in our village would also enjoy this, but we don't want to try it for the time being. Then he also jumped onto each cart and caused trouble. Then he joined the whole gang, as it was called. It was performed as follows: in the middle of the inn hall was the stage, and on the walls were benches for the audience. Karl Julius Schröer, my old friend and teacher, described the staging to me in great detail; after all, he wrote these plays down based on the way he heard them from the farmers themselves, and then corrected them according to the manuscript. Nevertheless, mistakes were made. And I must say that it is only over the years that I have come across some of the original text of these plays. For example, we could never get along with the first two lines that God speaks in the Paradeis play over the years. Schröer says: “Adam, take the living breath that you receive with the day.” It doesn't rhyme, nor does it make sense. It doesn't rhyme, nor does it make sense. It was only this year that it became clear to me that it is absolutely true:

Adam, take the living breath
that you received with the date...

with the date. That is absolutely traditional, that is, on this day. That is absolutely what was written there. I therefore found it really painful when, a few years ago, these plays were reprinted with tremendous sloppiness and carelessness. I have often been asked to reissue these plays; I did not want to do so without first editing these plays. But such prints were made with great carelessness, and so line after line of such nonsense can be seen everywhere in the prints that are now in circulation.

Of course, we have different means at our disposal here. We are not playing in an inn and cannot develop the same level of simplicity as was possible there, but nevertheless: in terms of the basic character, we would like to present these plays as they were originally performed among the peasants until the mid-19th century. You will get to know plays in which you can really see the basic customs of the people of yore. In these greetings, as they are presented before this Christmas Play, for example, there is something that beautifully established contact between the players and the audience of that time. Everyone actually felt that they belonged to the event, which at that time was precisely due to these greetings, which are actually something wonderful. Therefore, I have investigated whether there was not also such a greeting before the Paradeis play, and you could really, without the historical document being available, purely from the spirit of tradition, have such a greeting performed for the Paradeis play last year.

You will also see that in these plays, the most inner piety truly does prevail, sincere, honest piety, always together with a certain earthiness. And that is precisely something that is found in the fundamental character of Christian piety at that time. It was thoroughly honest, without sentimentality. The farmer could not become sentimental, he could not make a long face; he also had to laugh, even with the most pious. And that comes across to us in such a beautiful way in these plays. Some expressions will be noticed as unknown in the language, for example, some people will not know what “Kletzen gefressen” means. These are dried pears and plums that are eaten as such, especially in these areas at Christmas time. The pears were dried, then cut into slices; the plums were dried, and that is what the Kletzen were made of. But these dried fruits were especially baked into the bread, and in the bread these small pieces of the Kletzen were enjoyed with particular appetite. At Christmas, the Kletzen bread was something very special in these parts. That is why you heard in the Paradeis-Spiel:

Had Adam and Eve eaten Kletzen,
it would have been a thousand times more useful for them

than if they had eaten the apple in paradise! It is precisely in such things, which are so rooted in folklore, that one can see how genuinely these plays have been preserved. Now, we would like to present to you what has been preserved from ancient folklore as a piece of medieval history that extends into the present.

Perhaps I may also draw your attention to our poster, which is more appropriate to the Shepherds Play than to the Three Kings Play, but it has already been used by us today. We wanted to capture in pictures the mood of what these Christmas plays can still be in the present day.

On the occasion of the Christmas Conference 1923/24, both the Paradise Play and the Christmas Play were performed on 24 and 25 December at 4:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. due to the large crowds. Both speeches correspond almost word for word, so only the first introduction is printed here.