Lotte Reiniger

I found a review from the National's 1974 production of Spring Awakening which mentioned some tableaux that were reminiscent of Lotte Reiniger. I had never heard of Reiniger but the Internet revealed quite a feast. She is credited with creating the first feature-length animated films before Disney erased her from the history books. So the story goes.

She worked by stop-frame animating silhouette-figures on light-boxes to create a very distinctive style.

As soon as I saw some of her work I knew that it tied in perfectly with some of my other ideas for the production. The white cyclorama will effectively by like a lightbox when lit alone, casting anyone on stage into silhouette. My idea for moving between scenes, rather than going to a full blackout, is to drop down just to vivid coloured lights on the cyclorama, for the actors to move off in character and for the next scene to assemble in character, thus maintaining the fluidity of the numerous transitions.

This first clips is not in fact Lotte Reidiger but someone aping her style. I have put it first as it is very short to give a quick impression of what she did. Two excerpts from her original films follow.