When Mary is stuck in a traffic jam with her red duck, a white angel suddenly approaches her and tells her that she will have a child from God. “Do I have anything to say about that myself?” asks the Blessed Virgin. “No,” says the angel, “you have been chosen.” A little later, in the car, on the way to Bethlehem, the waters already break and the first contraction occurs. She screams out. Her husband Jozef immediately takes charge: “This is not normal. Puff puff! Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…”
This is The Nativity Scene of the Netherlands (NPO1), the story of the birth of Jesus Christ, son of God, a refresher course for non-Christian viewers who want to know why we celebrate Christmas. I haven’t laughed so much in a long time, although that may not have always been the intention.
When we arrive in Bethlehem, the inns appear to be full. The mistress of the De Oude Os inn, played by soprano Francis van Broekhuizen, still has a stable for them. “A house of my own, a place in the sun,” she sings tauntingly. Jozef tries to sell the poor B&B to his wife as “a kind of tiny house”, but Maria is not happy: “In my head this was all so different”.
The Nativity Scenelive from Onze Lieve Vrouweplein in Maastricht, is the new winter brother of The Passion: a Bible story told in an open-air show with well-known Dutch songs. ‘Evening’ by Boudewijn de Groot comes along (“I believe, I believe, I believe”), ‘The other side’ by Suzan and Freek (“It’s quiet here on the other side”) and ‘Dancing on the volcano’ by De Dijk. Various Christmas songs in between. The Shepherds, Silent Night.
No pathos
And important difference with The Passion is that the pathos is missing. This is not a popular spectacle in which the audience plays a major role. This is an intimate, low-key story. Lots of close-ups, few overall shots. The narrator, Kim-Lian van der Meij as the angel Gabriel, takes the viewers less by the hand, giving them little context. The songs are less known, the players are not well-known Dutch people but mainly musical actors.
That intimate approach could be an advantage. But The Nativity Scene doesn’t work at all. The Passion is also ridiculous kitsch, but that annual TV show certainly gives you the feeling that you are watching an important story. The Nativity scene left me completely indifferent. To begin with, that depends on the story itself. A birth without complications, no matter how beautiful, is less dramatic than the betrayal and execution of an innocent man. Furthermore: wooden story, soapy scenes, cheap execution.
In the background, Prime Minister Herod (Maarten Heijmans) is making his evil plans. His people are adrift because he is conducting a census – the country is full, the Prime Minister wants to know who they all are and why they cost so much money. Now he feels threatened by ‘the king of the Jews’ who is said to have been born in Bethlehem and he wants to take all the babies from that city as a precaution. In the Bible he has them all murdered, but the KRO-NCRV apparently thought that was too intense. Perhaps because such a child murder would be too reminiscent of current events. The current Bethlehem, Bayt Lahm, is a Palestinian city on the West Bank that is struggling under Israeli occupation.
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