{"id":1696,"date":"2012-08-06T15:40:07","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T15:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=1696"},"modified":"2012-08-06T15:40:21","modified_gmt":"2012-08-06T15:40:21","slug":"spectacular-puppets-make-epic-war-horse-admirable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/spectacular-puppets-make-epic-war-horse-admirable\/","title":{"rendered":"Spectacular puppets make epic \u2018War Horse\u2019 admirable"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Andrew Veenstra (right foreground) portrays Albert in \u201cWar Horse,\u201d while Christopher Mai (left), Derek Stratton and Rob Laqui (underneath the superstructure) work the huge puppet. Photo: Brinkhoff.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

My memory is a trickster so I can\u2019t swear to it. But I do recall seeing George Bernard Shaw\u2019s \u201cCaesar and Cleopatra\u201d as a teenager in 1951.<\/p>\n

It was my first Broadway show.<\/p>\n

I had no inkling then how good Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh were as actors.<\/p>\n

I recall later watching Jason Robards Jr. and Fredric March in Eugene O\u2019Neill\u2019s \u201cLong Day\u2019s Journey into Night,\u201d Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill in Edward Albee\u2019s \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf\u201d and Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke in William Gibson\u2019s \u201cThe Miracle Worker.\u201d<\/p>\n

For me, acting was king.<\/p>\n

And queen.<\/p>\n

Then came the gimmickry. My first glimpse of the theatrical trend was when the chandelier crashed down in \u201cPhantom of the Opera.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was followed by the helicopter landing onstage for \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d and, much more recently, Julie Taymor\u2019s gloriously imaginative giant hollow puppets and people-in-animal-costumes in \u201cThe Lion King.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lots of musical charm was sandwiched in between, of course.<\/p>\n

Stagecraft ruled.<\/p>\n

Now comes \u201cThe War Horse\u201d with its semi-mechanical \u201cstar,\u201d Joey, a 120-pound, 10-feet-long, 8-feet-tall walking, rearing and breathing steed that takes three puppeteers to operate.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s impressive.<\/p>\n

But does a gimmick, even a spectacular one, make the price of admission to this magical melodramatic epic worthwhile?<\/p>\n

My unwavering answer is, \u201cYes, yes, and hell yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was impossible for me not to gaze with delight at the horse puppets (Tophorn is sort of a co-star, a black counterpart to Joey\u2019s red bay, but also arresting are Coco and Heine and a much tinier Joey as a awkward foal).<\/p>\n

They become decidedly more real than the human characters \u2014 endowed with life-like movements, emotions and sounds.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to forget the steeds are moving not because of sinews and bloodstreams but rods and cables and other apparatus, so it\u2019s no wonder when \u201cWar Horse\u201d ended at the SHN Curran, the opening night audience gave mild applause to the actors and a standing ovation to the anatomically incorrect stallions.<\/p>\n

Before that point, the production was enriched substantially via a white horizontal screen across the center of the backdrop.<\/p>\n

The images projected onto it \u2014 including World War I battle scenes, rainstorms, skies and buildings \u2014 markedly helped the action come to life.<\/p>\n

So did the period costuming of civilians and soldiers, inventive sets and props that surrealistically and nightmarishly depicted horrific killing devices such as cannon, planes and barbed wire, and dramatic musical soundbursts that contrasted with the sweet hopefulness of a strolling Irish balladeer.<\/p>\n

Only the unmemorable acting by a large cast of cardboard characters (whose dialogue occasionally was too muffled for those in rear orchestra seats) and a trite, predictable storyline were found wanting.<\/p>\n

The emphatically anti-war play, strewn with dead human and horse bodies, covers from 1912 through Armistice Day in 1918.<\/p>\n

The plot\u2019s a snap to summarize: A drunk trying to outdo his brother buys Joey at auction. The new owner\u2019s teenage son, Albert, bonds with the animal and trains him. The horse is sold to the British Army, and later rescued by a German coward. The teen searches for his equine buddy.<\/p>\n

Spotty moments of humor (many provided by a comic puppet goose that\u2019s predisposed to biting) lighten the production, but mostly it\u2019s a austere affair in which war scenes dominate even Joey\u2019s majestic presence.<\/p>\n

And where the first section of the 135-minute Tony award-winning show is straightforward and clear, moments in the second act can be momentarily confusing.<\/p>\n

Nothing, however, can compete with Joey trotting up and down an aisle.<\/p>\n

Because South Africa\u2019s Handspring Puppet Company creations are so special, all minor criticism can be shunted aside unless you opt to stay home because, as one woman bemoaned, \u201cYou know how I hate war movies \u2014 well, this isn\u2019t any easier to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWar Horse\u201d runs at the SHN Curran Theatre, 445 Geary St., San Francisco, through Sept. 9. <\/em>Night performances Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Matinees, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $31 to $100. Information: (888) 746-1799 or shnsf.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  My memory is a trickster so I can\u2019t swear to it. But I do recall seeing George Bernard Shaw\u2019s \u201cCaesar and Cleopatra\u201d as a teenager in 1951. It was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"