Acting in the open air - performing more successfully (8)
I believe the answer is:
outdoing
'acting in' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both related to competing as well as being present participle verbs.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'open air performing more successfully' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'open' could be 'out' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'out' is found within the answer.
'performing' could be 'doing' ('do' can be a synonym of 'perform') and 'doing' is found within the answer.
No letters remain.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'the' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?