MEXICO CITY — The great multitudes who came to the hill knew that Jesus was near when the news helicopters appeared overhead and the dust began to swirl, like a curtain that parts for a play.
Rows of municipal police held up their plastic riot shields to keep the crowds from surging forward, for soon the bold Roman soldiers came, marching in leather sandals and riding lathered horses, wearing bright tunics and plumed helmets, carrying javelins and swords.
Over the loudspeakers came the crack of a lash and a lone woman wailing. In the distance, just beginning the long climb up the hill, was a figure dressed in white, dragging a heavy cross.
“He has fallen!” This was Josefina Delgado, who came with her husband and two young daughters to witness the Good Friday drama. “See how the soldiers beat him and how his mother cries!” Delgado held one of her daughters aloft to better see over the chain-link fence the scene of a bloody man down on the road, a crown of thorns on his head.
The performance of the Passion play is a revered tradition throughout much of Catholic Latin America, especially in Mexico, where hundreds of communities stage the Easter season re-enactment of the Crucifixion. The largest, most raucous event takes place here in Iztapalapa, Mexico City’s most populous barrio, which has hosted the performances each year since 1843. Authorities estimate that as many as 2 million visitors come to the processions in Iztapalapa during Holy Week.
The ceremonies this year take place against a backdrop of scarcity. There have been protests of the high cost of diesel fuel and fears about the stumbling peso. Because of weak rainfall, water reserves for Mexico City are at a historic low, and municipal officials cut off water in the past week to large swaths of the city. One of the hardest-hit neighborhoods is Iztapalapa, where residents stockpiled water in buckets and drums.
“We are poor, and so we suffer — that’s the truth,” said Francisco Linares, 19, a street vendor and resident of Iztapalapa who joined the hundreds of other young men to accompany the Good Friday procession by carrying his own heavy wooden cross up the Hill of the Star, the public park where the Crucifixion takes place.
Linares said the lack of water did not bother him much — “Not today.” You can wash in a pail, he said. You can buy a bottle of water to drink for a couple of pesos. “Today is about the Passion,” he said.
A carnival atmosphere of street vendors, a Ferris wheel and stalls selling Last Supper carpets surrounds the processional.
About 3,000 police officers keep order, and more than 4,000 locals play the roles of mourners, soldiers, priests. Special parts are highly sought after — for the characters of the Apostles; for Pontius Pilate, who condemns Jesus to the cross; and even for Judas Iscariot, who betrays Jesus for money. In the processional, Judas walks through the streets, and the crowds taunt him and call out, “Traitor,” as he throws fake coins from a bag.
The stars of the show, however, are Mary and her son, Jesus, this year played by an 18-year-old local named Diego Zirahuen Villagran Villalobos, who according to his bio on the Passion Web site dreams of being a chemical engineer with the national oil company Pemex.
The Passion play as performed in Iztapalapa is intense and emotional. Jesus is kicked, beaten, whipped and covered in blood, with a cinematic reality. And Mary’s cries stir the people in the crowds, who perhaps cannot help but think not only of the suffering of Jesus but also of their own.
As the Jesus character makes his way up the hill, he frequently stumbles, and the throngs moan along with him. When Judas reaches the top of the hill, he skulks away and then is seen hanging from a tree, a re-creation of his guilty suicide.
Then comes the sound, over the loudspeakers, of nails being driven into hard wood, and though there are hundreds of thousands of people on the hill, it grows very quiet. Jesus is hoisted aloft, and he looks out over the gathering, over Mexico City, and shouts: “Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do!” and many in the audience are weeping.
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