Word: dolorosa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...with an appreciation of the past as well. In Jerusalem recently, he walked the Old City, brushing thousands of years of faith and murder. He would like you to see yourself as history, to wonder what you would have shouted, or at whom, as Jesus struggled up the Via Dolorosa. He hopes that you will husband your own past too. The past means possibility...
...bare hills surrounding the city now extend to the very edge of the desert wilderness where Satan tempted Jesus; and though the walled Old City surrounding the holy shrines is still redolent of cinnamon and roasting lamb and hashish and donkey turds, the twisting alleys leading onto the Via Dolorosa (Sorrowful Way) are covered with paving stones rather than mud. Even the cats-Jerusalem has a remarkable quantity of cats-look content...
Good Friday is more somber. The zigzagging Via Dolorosa, so named only in the 16th century, is packed with pilgrims following in Christ's footsteps to Calvary. "We adore thee, O Christ ... Thou hast redeemed the world," the Franciscan monks chant in Lathi as they lead their flocks through the Arab market, through the 14 stations of the Cross. Past the small Polish chapel that marks the spot where Jesus staggered and fell under the burden of his Cross, past the Armenian church that commemorates his encounter with his mother, past the Greek chapel that honors St. Veronica...
...This Candide in khaki enters the war as a neutral observer. He believes that "if I just keep my eyes open, I can understand the whole world." He soon enough does, to his sorrow, and with the help of a dozen soldiers and civilians he meets along the Via Dolorosa. Half of them are Americans, half Ambolanders; three are women. (All are played by Bob Gunton.) These "historical events" serve as avatars and parodies of the looking-glass warriors, and most of them are perversely delightful. Mme. Ing, the patrician Borgia who rules Amboland, ends every discussion with the despot...
...unforgettable purity of spirit. The final scene in this segment is a visual stunner. The rising wind whips the garment about Clytemnestra's knees. Alone, burnt-eyed, she raises an arm as she watches the Greek fleet under full sail, a Botticelli Venus transformed into the mater dolorosa...