Broadway Postcard No. 6: War is hell, but ‘War Horse’ is terrific
By Hap Erstein
Avenue Q arrived on Broadway some eight years ago with its snarky, often off-color humor to claim that puppet shows are not necessarily mere kids’ stuff. That heretical suggestion has now been confirmed forever by the emotionally charged War Horse, an epic tale of a young man and his trusty steed, set against the horrors of World War I.
A transfer from the National Theatre of Great Britain, it now resides at Lincoln Center’s vast Vivian Beaumont. This used to be considered a highly problematic playing space, but to see how beautifully a huge, yet intimate production like War Horse fits here – or South Pacific or The Coast of Utopia before it – one wonders how there could have ever been naysayers about the physical plant.
Anyway, War Horse is based on a children’s book by Michael Morpurgo about Albert, the son of an alcoholic Devon farmer who falls in love with a chestnut-colored horse named Joey that his father purchases on a jealous whim. When Joey is sold into the cavalry to aid the war effort, Albert runs away from home and enlists in the army in an attempt to reunite with the semi-thoroughbred.
It is not a particularly complex or subtle story and the production is more narrative pageant than play, but the stagecraft of the life-sized puppets and a backdrop of animated hand-drawn projections make this one of the must-sees – you’ve never seen anything like it before – of this Broadway season.
The animals were created by the Handspring Puppet Company and they are awe-inspiring. Joey is manipulated by three people, visible at all times, either standing next to the horse or inside him. But the miracle of what Handspring hath wrought is that the humans virtually disappear as Joey comes to life, turning his head with such expression, flicking his tail or slogging through the mud of war-torn France.
And while it seems silly typing these words, another astonishing Handspring creation is an adorable goose puppet on wheels that is the sole comic relief of the 2-hour-40-minute production.
Ultimately, War Horse is about the brutality and destruction of war, but if you are willing to stipulate from the start that war is rotten, you can concentrate instead on the alchemy of live theater. And puppetry.
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The only downside of my trip so far – OK, after my horrendous day of flying to get here and after the painfully bad People in the Picture – was a broken interview with Karole Armitage, the choreographer of Hair, who agreed to sit and talk with me about the show coming to the Kravis Center next season. So I schlepped down to the Joyce Theatre on 19th Street, where her modern dance company is performing and waited for a half hour for her to show up, before I had to hurry uptown to see War Horse.
Karole, where were you? Call me.