While our eldest daughter is visiting with us in England, we thought we would go up to London for a day, take in some delightful meals and see a play. Eastbourne, where we live in the summer, is only 70-odd miles south of London with excellent and frequent train service, so it is easy to take a day trip. We left at 10:30 a.m. and were home by 10:00 p.m.
We had one of the finest theatrical experiences we’ve ever encountered in seeing the play, “War Horse”, which has won the most prestigious awards, including the Olivier Prize for best play (named for the great actor, Laurence Olivier) and the Critics Circle Award.
“War Horse” is a unique and innovative play based on a popular children’s novel (but with adult appeal, as well) about a young farm boy and his horse who develop a loving mutual bond at the time of World War I. Joey, the horse, is a large, fast and spirited animal who is conscripted into the British Cavalry. The dashing Cavalry officer who purchases him, with great misgivings from Arthur, the farm boy, promises the lad that he will take care of the horse and bring him back in a few months after the war is won, he confidently and erroneously predicts.
The cavalry office predictably is killed and the horse ends up in German hands, and by the end of the war Joey is trapped in No Man’s Land. In the meanwhile Arthur, only sixteen, lies about his age and enlists in the British Army in an effort to find Joey. He undergoes a living hell of combat experience. You can predict the happy ending..
What is so mesmerizing are puppeteers, four to a horse, who operate these fantastically “real” horses on stage. The puppeteers’ movements are balletic in their grace and you find yourself, even during dialogue by the live actors on stage, drawn to the horses who whinny, neigh, trot, gallop, rear and even nibble grass on stage. The mechanisms and levers to create this realism are complex and fascinating. Other puppeteers circle the stage, sometimes through the audience, with birds, especially vultures, and with a comical goose who is always chasing and biting some unlucky farm hand.
I’m sure it will come to New York and then go on national tour. You need a large circular revolving stage, so the logistics of showing “War Horse” will not be simple. If it is anywhere near you, DON’T MISS IT! It is an experience you will cherish.
P.S. Steven Spielberg has bought the movie rights for “War Horse”. Does that tell you something?
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