A Passion for Getting it Right

A piece about the conflicted history the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany. If you guessed it has to do with Hitler, you would be right.

What's more, Stückl's staging depicts Jesus' Jerusalem as an oppressed, occupied city, and Pontius Pilate is now the first person, not the last, to demand that he be silenced. Stephan Burkart plays Pilate with a sardonic, Nazified swagger that would be perfect for "Inglourious Basterds," and it's easy to remember that this Bavarian village is only a couple of hours away from the Dachau concentration camp: a Golgotha on German soil. Oberammergau may be remote, but it's profoundly in touch, keeping the faith in surprising new ways.

Shakespeare American Style

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival simply rocks. Read about their new American history project, inspired by who else? Shakespeare!

The United States History Cycle. Shortly before he took over in 2007, the festival’s artistic director, Bill Rauch, announced a 10-year plan to commission 37 new plays — a nod to the number in Shakespeare’s canon — about critical moments in American history. Up to 15 will get full productions at the festival; others, it is hoped, will be produced elsewhere.

In an interview Mr. Rauch said he was inspired by the role that Shakespeare, through his history plays, filled in helping his fellow citizens confront the major political questions of their day. “He lived in an age of anxiety about who would replace the childless monarch Elizabeth,” Mr. Rauch said. “He dramatized stories from his country’s past to study the transfer of power and to entertain and move and provoke people, and that got me thinking about our own country’s

history.”

The Question of Standing

Another article and some other points of view on the ruling of "standing" in the Prop 8 case. From the Orange County register:

Some advocates of gay marriage won't be satisfied if same-sex couples are allowed to marry in California because of the technical issue of standing. They want a Supreme Court precedent on a national level. And that's what the two high-powered attorneys challenging Prop. 8, Ted Olson and David Boies, were after when they entered the fray.

"The standing issue is just a distraction from the main issue," said Douglas NeJaime, who specializes in law and sexuality at Loyola Law School. "What the Olson-Boies team really wants is a decision on the merits."

So instead of first asking the appeals court to throw out the appeal on the basis of standing before arguing the merits, Olson and Bois could choose to argue the case on merits and standing simultaneously, NeJaime said.

But Katherine Darmer, a Chapman Law School professor, thinks Olson and Bois would be content to win the case on the issue of standing.

"I suspect they would take a standing victory and go with it," said Darmer, a Prop. 8 opponent who's legal committee chairwoman of the Orange County Equality Coalition. "I also think it would be far less risky than going all the way to the Supreme Court on the merits. This is a safer route to equality for the largest state in the U.S., which will impact not just the country, but the globe."