Passion Play, Philippines, 1984

Abstract

For the western observer, ‘liberation theology’ can appear an unexpected mixture of orthodox religious belief and revolutionary political thinking. When Karl Gaspar, a lay Catholic who had been working with the poor on the island of Mindanao, was detained in 1983 under a Philippine law permitting arbitrary political detention, the mixture took theatrical form, in the creation of a passion play with a Christ conceived as labour-organizer. Karl Gaspar, who was released in February 1985, describes how liturgical drama took shape in a prison camp, in an account which appears by courtesy of Other Side magazine.