No Greater Love

Written by eklastic

It’s open to discussion who the protagonist in the Christmas story is – the baby or the star. You take your pick.

As to the title – that’s actually a funny story. When we moved to Zimbabwe in 1996 my husband brought a pamphlet home. St George’s College in Harare was looking for actors for a passion play in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the school. It was a few weeks after the auditions but I thought they might still have a small part for me, something like 3rd Jewess in the crowd. I got an appointment with the director and after we spoke for a couple of hours we decided we liked each other and she appreciated my drama degree and I became the assistant director. It was a big production. Within less than a month of arriving in a new town I had 300 new friends, many of them high school students. We produced a wonderful open air play about the life of Jesus Christ, 200 actors, 100 people backstage, 4 donkeys, 5 mounted police dressed up as Roman soldiers, about 10 goats and 2 camels, imported from South Africa. It was a great experience which led to more theatre productions, biblical and otherwise. The title was: “No Greater Love – A Passion Play”. 

The videotape of the play which I sent to my family in Germany was intercepted by German customs under suspicion of pornography.Their reasoning was: A title that included “love” and “passion” and came from deepest Africa could only be porn. To this day I imagine the custom officers who have to vet contraband settling down in front of a TV and expecting to see some illicit porn and being treated to a story with a non-black protagonist.

Ragtag Daily Prompt: Protagonist

10 thoughts on “No Greater Love”

    1. I’ve got a whole tape – a VHS tape. I’ve not gotten around to transferring it to a CD. It was great and I have lots of stories from that production. Not the worst is the one about one rehearsal that started with the memorable words: “We can’t start yet. Pontius Pilate is running late, Jesus has to pick up his kids from nursery school because his wife is ill, and Judas is kept after school for missing his homework …” 😁

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

    1. 😁 Oh, I was a mediocre actress in four countries and three continents. I also think that I am a decent director. I even starred in a student film that could – in prudish South African terms – be considered to allude to very, very soft porn …

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. 😂😂 It was a passion play. No baby Jesus. That’s why I wasn’t offered a small part, I guess, and had to make do with being (assistant) director. I was in charge of the Roman soldiers. 12 young men, not yet 17, in mini skirts!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

Leave a comment