Rumpelstiltskin | The Hare and the Hedgehog

Who, for heaven’s sake, transforms this dungeon into a stage of international calibre in a matter of seconds? Goodness, it’s on the tip of your tongue!

But it’s also enough to drive you mad: just when you’ve succeeded, everyone’s shouting “More!” from all sides. And so the beautiful miller’s daughter spins straw into gold and weeps, and spins, and weeps, and spins. The king, that Grimm-esque Scrooge McDuck, actually demands more and more. So, in her utter desperation, the miller’s daughter promises her first-born to the lost little man who rushes to her rescue. It’s just a shame that nobody knows his name! Because without it, she’ll never see her little one again.

Will she get her child back in the end? Well, that depends entirely on how carefully the audience has studied the programme.

The Hare and the Hedgehog

The classic par excellence, our primordial Grimm. This is how the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm taught us to turn their fairy tales into reality through play: by means of two actors, a stage the size of a beer mat, and a great love of literal detail. The original text is as sacred as the Bible and to be taken as seriously as a Shakespearean epic. Whatever it says is to be regarded as strict stage directions, even – and especially – when the hare races the hedgehog for a full seventy-three laps.

Who plays the hedgehog lady? And how, pray tell, does one credibly fall for the same cheap trick 73 times? Well, quite simply: with the help of the audience and with the greatest of pleasure – yes, we promise: Grimm-free on Fairy Tale Hill!

• Fairy tales for everyone – suitable for children aged 4 and over

IN GERMAN