War Horse: the secret is in thestory-telling

Following War Hourse's triumph
at last night's Tony's, Dominic
Cavendish looks at why Michael
Murpurgo's fairytale war story
has become a stage
phenomenon.
What is it about War Horse?
How is it that a show which
sounded nigh - or neigh -
impossible to pull off -
theatricalising a novel written
from a horse ’s-eye-view - has
done so phenomenally well?
First it caused a stampede at the
National in October 2007, then a
well-deserved West End transfer
that looks set to run and run -
and now it has achieved a
Broadway branding like
something out of a wild and
roaming-free dream: six Tony
Awards, entirely merited (and
entirely eclipsing its two Olivier
awards) and almost certain to
ensure it becomes a huge, huge
hit Stateside.
Remember that Michael
Morpurgo, whose beloved book
for children (first published in
1982) this is, thought that the
National must be “mad” to
consider adapting it, and to use
puppets to tell the simple,
moving tale of how his horse
hero Joey came to be separated
from - and finally reunited with -
his young farm-hand owner
Albert amid the horror of the
Great War Trenches.
The frame puppets, of course -
immense, yet vulnerable,
manifestly man-operated yet
exquisitely life-like - are a key
component to the production ’s
wow-factor - a joy for adult and
child alike, and it ’s only right that
Handspring Puppet Company,
from South Africa, were given a
Special Tony Award - joining the
five others handed out for Best
Play (author Nick Stafford), Best
Sound Design of a play
(Christopher Shutt), Best Lighting
Design of a play (Paule
Constable), Best Scenic Design of
a play (Rae Smith) and Best
Direction of a play (Tom Morris
and Marianne Elliott).
A triumphant night, then, for the
creative team - and a marker of
the thoroughbred nature of the
National Theatre under Nick
Hytner. Although it has secured
the coveted “Best Play” gong,
this is very much a piece of total
theatre, and as much as it takes
us back to the vanished England
of 100 years ago, and the
sodden, bloody nightmare of the
Western Front, there ’s something
about the experimentalism that
feels very modern, very fresh, as
if such a piece of work could
only happen now.
If I had to identify why I believe
the show has such legs, however,
I ’d say that something rare and
profound happens in that shared
act of story-telling, in which, with
all the mechanics of the
puppetry laid bare, the audience
must harness its own collective
imagination to make the world
come fully alive. Rather than
being a cheap excuse for weepy-
eyed sentimentality, the show
reins in unearned emotion by
making us constantly aware that
this fairytale adventure -
romance, even - between boy
and horse is an oblique way of
broaching the impossible-to-
fathom slaughter of the Great
War. Behind this small, valiant,
risk-taking theatrical enterprise
stands the more immense
backdrop of the courage and
sacrifice of those who served,
and lost their lives - soldiers as
well as their equine comrades -
in the war to end all wars.
What you get is the feeling that
everyone on stage has come
together to work in service to
something greater than
themselves. I think that ’s what
makes the piece so ineffably
moving. In seeing performers
tending to the “horses”, you’re
reminded of the relationship
between mankind and nature
that was so brutally up-ended by
the militarism of 1914-1918, and
for a few heart-rending hours
that damage and rupture is both
acknowledged, and somehow, by
an act of remembrance across
the generations, fleetingly
repaired.

Source:www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/drama/8572726/War-Horse-the-secret-is-in-the-story-telling.html