War Horse

The entire day today I have been talking non-stop about the National Theatre production of 'War Horse' (now at the New London Theatre at Drury Lane). It was last night that I went to see it and have not stopped thinking and talking about it since. So now even you are privileged to share my experience.

After arriving to my seat, I realised how simple the stage was; specious and nothing fancy. Of course, there was a reason for that. The horse puppets needed this space to run revealing their movement and since the story itself is so powerful, there is no need for many props.

I was absolutely mesmerised by the skill with which the horse movement was achieved. Each puppet (and there was a number of complete ones) was lead by three actors (or puppeteers?). One would handle the head/neck movement including the ears, the other two would deal with the front and back legs including breathing and the tail. All three then come together in unisono imitating the voice of a horse.


In this scene the two horses had a fight that thank to the puppeteers looked so real.

The whole production was put together in such a clever way. I have mentioned it already that the stage itself was simple leaving a lot of space to run around. However, I must note how well everybody worked together to divide it when needed. Actors holding poles in various ways to create e.i. a stable around the horse or one actor leaving the scene as if opening a gate, all of this done so that the viewer does not even notice the actors.

During the production, the actors would also use the stalls running on and off the stage into the audience. My seat was located close to the stage (aisle, second raw) so I would feel the air moving every time somebody passed by. This is how I also experienced explosions in the war scenes. There was one in particular when the smoke reached the audience making us all cough and so bringing us into the scene. This was quite a nice touch, I thought.

The horse movement was captured in a way that soon you stopped seeing the puppeteers and started seeing a real horse. All was brought to perfection with the cut between a slow and standard motion accompanied by evocative music. We are so used to seeing such scenes in movies but to experience it in real life at a stage is priceless.

In this image you can see the horse in strain ploughing a field. When in motion you simply see only the horse's struggle and the boy holding the plough and encouraging the horse.

I absolutely loved the production. The overall choreography, the smoothness, the entire picture. All accompanied by a few nice humorous touches throughout such as the re-appearing goose that was depicted in such a way that any goose would be filled with envy.


This was £50 well spent.


(All images in this post have been downloaded from the Internet.)