Pre-enacting The Passion: Restaging religious heritage, producing unruly audiences 1

This chapter studies a particular restaging of the European tradition of Passion plays, named The Passion, in the Netherlands. Broadcast on television, simultaneously performed live, this multimedial depiction of Christ's persecution, crucifixion and resurrection draws millions of viewers annually, since its first performance in 2011. The popularity of The Passion unfolds against anxiety about and contestations of the place of religious heritage in the Netherlands. The discourse on the relevance of The Passion as a ‘tradition’ in which a ‘universal story of connectedness’ is told, insufficiently explains its success in drawing large and diverse audiences. We introduce the notion of ‘pre-enactment’ to shed light on how the organisers attempt to invoke and control The Passion's public image and meaning. Through on- and offline ethnographic research during The Passion of 2017, we highlight strategies used by the organisers to attempt to craft its audience, often with unforeseen results.