Inspiring Women : November 2020
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the quieter and subtler<br />
moments of the play. The<br />
‘fourth wall’ is broken,<br />
characters may often speak<br />
directly to the audience and<br />
occasionally involve them<br />
in the action. It’s great fun.<br />
An outdoor space can<br />
adapt to any setting, but an<br />
outdoor company has to<br />
carry and store all its own<br />
props and costumes. For<br />
each of our productions,<br />
Conny’s partner Ken Lawler<br />
masterminded an<br />
ingenious collapsible set<br />
that could be stowed in a<br />
Fun with fairies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2014 ©Thomas Hafner<br />
trailer attached to the back<br />
of his car, driven into the park before each performance, and quickly assembled by the entire<br />
company, with everyone performing their allotted task. After the show, when the light was fading<br />
fast, the whole thing was done in reverse in double quick time before darkness fell completely.<br />
Beautiful team work!<br />
Costumes and music stimulate the senses and emotions of actors and audience, and are a ‘magic’<br />
ingredient, evoking glamour and romance. Again and again our costume designer Claire Middleton<br />
transformed flea market finds into beautiful costumes, and the musical talents of the cast were<br />
always sought out and set to work. These two elements were often the magnet for passers-by to<br />
linger, then sit and stay.<br />
Being a Shakespeare scholar,<br />
Conny is firmly committed to the<br />
language and poetry of the plays,<br />
and although we abridged each<br />
play to 1.5 hours by carefully<br />
removing some of the text, we<br />
never altered or simplified the<br />
language. We didn’t need to. To<br />
illustrate, here’s one of my<br />
favourite memories:<br />
During one of our performances<br />
of ‘Twelfth Night’ at the Teatron in<br />
Munich’s Westpark, a large family<br />
group of children aged about six<br />
to thirteen, who were playing<br />
nearby, heard the action and<br />
came to investigate. They crept as<br />
close to the stage as they could,<br />
and sat through to the end of the<br />
performance. The next day, the<br />
older children returned early to<br />
bag the best seats right at the<br />
front, and watched the entire play<br />
69<br />
A rapt audience during a performance of Romeo & Juliet © Dora Lutz
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