Estepona outdoor Passion Play

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La Pasión según Estepona is the outdoor Passion Play held every year in Estepona on Easter Saturday. It's the only one like this anywhere in Southern Spain, and an impressive spectacle. Do try to see it!

Eighty or so local residents, aged from 7 to 70+, take to the pretty streets and squares of Estepona under the direction of the local Drama teacher to act out the last days of the life and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

With professional costumes and sound systems, and the local television station filming it all for posterity (and Youtube!), the assembled crowds follow from location to location to the deeply moving final scene of the Crucifixion.

Rehearsals are held for months beforehand, mainly indoors but several in the squares and streets. Locals are used to it, but when visitors suddenly see a gang of people (Roman soldiers, but not in costume) hustling a young man (Christ, but in jeans and t-shirt) and whipping him along the pedestrian shopping street, they just don't know what to think!

You can follow the itinerary on Google Maps. It begins in the Plaza San Francisco in front of the Remedios church, with the scene of the Last Supper and Christ washing the disciples' feet. The actors then move along the Calle Blas Ortega and first left into the Calle Santa Ana and the Plaza Manuel Alcántara which is the Garden of Gethsemane. Judas Iscariot kisses Jesus to identify him so that he can be arrested.

They then turn right into the Calle Caravaca then left into C/ Augusto Suarez and up the steps into the little Plaza Blas Infante. This is the first, emotional, meeting of Mary with her son.

Everyone then proceeds into the large Plaza del Reloj for the scene where the Sanhedrin Priests question Jesus at the Temple and pay Judas Iscariot for his betrayal. Peter denies that he knows Jesus, the cock crows thrice, before everyone exits down the steps and along the C/ Villa to the castle.

There are several scenes by the castle, first with Pontius Pilate and his wife, then transferring round to the other side of the castle in C/ Castillo for the scene where, after Pontius Pilate has held the trial, the crowd (the crowd of actors, not the audience!) calls to him to free Barrabas and crucify Christ. He is then whipped by the soldiers with realistic fake blood, has the Crown of Thorns placed on his head, and takes up his cross.

The actors go left into the C/ Castillo, right down the C/ Santa Ana and then left into the C/ Real, the main pedestrianised shopping street of Estepona. Carrying his cross, Jesus walks slowly, stumbling and falling, accompanied by his weeping mother along the Calle Real, then left up the main shopping street Calle Terraza to the garden in front of the Orchid House for the Crucifixion scene. The crowds od spectators gather round.

Several days before, the municipal technicians have prepared the three crosses. Massive structures in wood with a small shelf for the actors' feet, they are hinged at the base and very firmly bolted into concrete. Jesus and the thieves are tied to the crossbeams as the crosses lie on the ground. The soldiers then use long ropes to hoist the crosses upright and block them into place. A worrying moment this!

When the three men have "died" on their crosses, the soldiers take stepladders up to untie them and carry them down to the waiting Mary. Another tricky moment - if they get this wrong, the men will fall.

In the rehearsals one year, the soldiers forgot the stepladder, and the three actors were caught up on the crosses, unable to untie themselves of course, to get down. Someone rushed to a local bar to borrow a stepladder. Good job it was the rehearsal!

At the very end of the performance, after Mary has wept over the body of her son, the audience finally claps and cheers, and the actors all hug one another - several months of preparation well worth the effort. I know this because I am one of the townspeople, playing a very minor role as a Hebrew Villager in this absolutely marvellous event.

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