War Horse Stage Evaluation

“War Horse” Evaluation
“War Horse” is the adapted stage production of the famous children’s novel by Michael Morpurgo. The story is about a young boy and his relationship with his beloved horse, and the events that follow them both being thrown into the First World War. Adapting a novel where the title character is a horse into a theatre production presents unavoidable issues as, for obvious reasons, you cannot use a real horse in a live theatre performance. However, upon watching the performance I found that the issue had been handled creatively and realistically. Intricate puppets were used to represent the horses in the story and were manipulated in the production by members of the Handspring Puppet Company. To ensure a life – like quality, the greatest care had been taken by the puppeteers over the movements and characteristics of the horses. The same care was also taken for the actual artistic design of the puppets themselves. With these combined qualities, I found myself forgetting there were puppeteers at all and believing I was watching the journey of a real horse. The story line was always adventurous and exciting, being passionately portrayed by the actors. While the first half introduced the characters and story line, the second half was filled with many thrilling and emotional scenes with some even being either in German or French, giving the story further character development and making it culturally diverse.
The puppetry in this production was handled expertly and all the models were splendidly manipulated by the extremely talented puppeteers from the Handspring Puppet Company. The puppeteers were in control of their movements and the sounds that the animals made. The puppeteers controlled the horses with such careful detail that aside from walking, running and neighing, their chests would rise and fall with their breathing, their heads would turn inquisitively and their ears would prick with sound. I believe these qualities were executed with