Outdoor Theatre: The Joys and Perils.

Lucy Graham reports on the challenge of staging a show open to the elements.

Wondering whether to cancel your planned barbecue tonight? Spare a thought for Glenn Elston, for whom theatre productions over the past 25 years have included recalcitrant possums, a cast member falling into a lake, and many cancellations.

Since presenting The Wind in the Willows in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens in 1987, the founder of the Australian Shakespeare Company has carved out a reputation as this country’s outdoor theatre specialist, where the natural surrounds become the set.

Elston’s passion was born when he was living in England and heard a friend reading The Wind in the Willows aloud to a friend. Struck by the beauty of the text he began imagining what it would be like to adapt the book for theatre and to set it outdoors.

“Then when I was at the VCA in Melbourne they took us into the Royal Botanical Gardens for lunch. I had never been to Melbourne before and I thought the gardens were the most magnificent and beautiful place.”

Since then the Australian Shakespeare Company, without funding, has thrilled patrons in outdoor performances including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Walking with Spirits, The Taming of the Shrew and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

“When we first approached the gardens, the new director Mr John Taylor was very positive and took it on, meeting with the gardeners who couldn’t see any problem with it.”

The company listed the gardeners in a second virtual cast, much to their delight.

Elston says part of the fun comes from surprises along the way. He laughs as he recalls a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which Oberon, King of the Fairies fell into the lake while crossing the purpose built underwater bridge. On another night in a Sydney performance of Romeo and Juliet, resident possums reeked havoc when they invaded the market stalls laden with fruit.

But after the wettest summer on record last year, Elston remains convinced of the value of outdoor theatre. On occasion shows have been stopped to ask if the audience want to persist, and the answer invariably is, what are you waiting for, the show must go on.

As Elston sees it outdoor theatre nurtures an intimacy between performers and audience that can’t be achieved in a theatre. It seems to thrive on the notion that we’re all in this together, hell or high water and “cancelling is hard because when the conditions are less than perfect it’s something that bonds the audience.”

“There’s a different contract with the audience for outdoor theatre. Where audiences at an indoor show understand they will sit in one place, and that there will be complete silence, in an outdoor setting it’s more relaxed and the audience are there to have a good time.”

In Australia’s west, amateur company Stage Left Theatre Troupe performed the ironically titled musical Disco Inferno under threat of thunderstorm in 2009.

“The weather had been threatening all day,” said company president Lisa Van Oyen, “and started building up during the performance until the song ‘Enough is Enough’ began. As the singers began singing It’s raining its pouring, my love life is boring me to tears, down it came. It was hilarious.”

Each year Kalgoorlie based Stage Left Theatre Troupe present ‘Theatre in the Bush’ on a sheep station 27kms out of town. It is a major logistical operation as the company must source and set up all the required equipment, a purpose built stage, sound system, a donger for change rooms, scaffolding, chairs and tables and catering facilities.

Last year they staged Footrot Flats the Musical with its cast of farm animals.

“We put the stage right next to the shearing shed. It was absolutely perfect.” Weather again proved a challenge.

“We had a huge hail storm during the final dress rehearsal and had to cancel. It looked like it would be the same for opening night, but by the time it opened the weather was fine.”

Van Oyen says staging a show outdoors means you have to plan for everything, and there are many distractions. They are grateful to Bunnings who donate ponchos for audience members each year for what is advertised as an “all weather event”.

“It’s the uniqueness of it that people love,” said Van Oyen. ‘There are some people from Perth who come every year, and it definitely attracts people who’d not normally come to theatre.”

Access to a broader audience is a claim Elston also makes. On a taxi journey from Melbourne airport into the gardens the 55 year old received his most valued review, when the driver, not knowing who Elston was, began raving about the show. Dragged along by his wife, he had been blown away by the spectacle and the fact he could actually understand it.

Elston says secondary students frequently express amazement about how funny and entertaining Shakespeare is after an outdoor show, and preconceived notions of The Bard as stuffy and remote vanish into fresh air.

For Glenn Elston it is more than the fact outdoor theatre has the capacity to draw people under its spell. His over-riding motivation for outdoor theatre is the opportunity to “marry of all the elements: art, nature, the beauty of words and human nature. The reason for doing it is watching the elements all link up.”

Images: A Midsummer Night's Dream (top two), Alice in Wonderland and Stage Left Theatre Troupe.