Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Events Review: Trusty steed "War Horse" makes theater magic
Posted by Andrew Alexander @AndrewAWriter on Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 9:36 AM
- Brinkhoff/Mögenburg
- BEASTS OF BURDEN: Puppeteers bring the horses Joey and Topthorn of "War Horse" to life at the Fox through September 30.
The most salient innovation of the stage show is, of course, the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa's designs for the horses. The puppets seem larger than life, literally: slightly bigger and somehow more horsier even than real horses. Constructed of lightweight material and with a gorgeously sculptural, slightly skeletal quality, each of the puppets is given an enormous amount of life by three puppeteers dressed in period clothing: the ears move, the tail swishes, the mane shakes, the rib cage rises and falls as if with breath. The effect is pretty captivating, and Joey, the lead horse, seems to develop a personality and a character just as any other actor would. In addition to the horses, there are several other clever bits of stagecraft: a comic goose for the farm scenes, a World War One tank, trenches, explosions, and so on. A simple screen, like a torn wall fragment suspended above the stage, provides projections of simple sketches and dates, giving the action its setting and context.
It may take crafty puppeteers to build horses for the stage, but playwright Nick Stafford obviously understands how a play itself is built. And War Horse is built like a tank. Each scene has a backbone of steel, and there are never any extra lines, no fluff or moments when we sense that the writer has lost his way or is trying to figure out how to get us from point A to point B. It's a pretty straightforward sentimental story: boy-gets-horse, boy-loses horse, boy-leaves-family etc etc but all these melodramatic tropes and, uh, war horses are employed well enough to keep the show incredibly engaging.Straight drama is hard to bring to the stage of the Fox, which doesn't lack for fabulous glitz, but does lack for intimacy. Fortunately, War Horse was originally designed for a large stage, Britain's National Theatre in London, so it isn't a terribly difficult leap. The story and action are broad without being ploddingly so, and the double-handkerchief bring-the-whole-family weepie still plays at the back of the house. The play, based on the young adult novel by Michael Morpurgo, originated at Britain's National Theatre before moving to the West End: it received its first American production at Lincoln Center before becoming the touring production now stopping at the Fox. (Note: Scenes of war are, appropriately, loud and nightmarish so very young children might be frightened).
By taking on a story that seems totally unsuited for the stage, War Horse actually ends up getting at the heart of what theater is all about: In the right hands, an audience can be made to shed real tears over fake horses.
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