Albert and Joey, the horse in “War Horse”. (Photo by Brinkhoff/Mogenburg)
HARTFORD – The multi-Tony Award winner, “War Horse” galloped into The Bushnell direct from long award-winning runs in London and New York. You only have until Sunday to catch this simple children’s tale wrapped up in a rich production, where superb direction, music, sets, lights, costumes, movement, and puppetry transform the story of a boy and his horse into an awesome theatrical experience. I meant to use the term awesome. The creaters’ use of theatre at its best will leave its audiences in awe at how live theatre can transfix, elevate, and transform.
Joey, the War Horse. (Photo by Brinkhoff/Mogenburg)
Based on Michael Morpurgo’s beloved novel, “War Horse”, and also the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s feature film of the same name, “War
Horse” is the story of a young farm boy in Devon, who trains a horse named Joey. Joey is sold, as World War I envelopes Europe, and farm boy enlists in the hope of finding Joey, who is now a war horse.
Larger than life-size horse puppets from the Handspring Puppet Company take center stage; each choreographed and operated by a trio of puppeteers, astonish. Marianne Elliott’s and Tom Morris’ Tony
Award-winning direction is cinematic, as each scene unfolds into the next, fueled by Adrian Sutton’s brilliant musical score (as rich as any John Williams or Bernard Hermann scores for film) and John Tams’ songs. Rae Smith’s simple sets, costumes, and drawings; Paule
Constable’s stunning lighting, and Toby Sedgwick’s movement all fuse together to fill the enormous Bushnell stage in a sensory overload of sight and sound.
It would be very difficult to single out any one performance in the large cast, since they move and interact as a complete ensemble. Every performance required split-second timing, and every actor delivered.
Puppeteers Mairi Babb, Catherine Cowl, Nick Lamedica, Danny Yoerges, Patrick Osteen, Dayna Tietzen, John Hoce, Brian Robert Burns, Gregory Manley, Adam Cunningham, Aaron Haskell, Brendan Murray, and Caden Douglas, all parts of the horses, performed with the elite syncopation usually reserved for a tightly-rehearsed ensemble of the New York City Ballet.
The Bushnell is one of the few area theatres large enough to present the really big shows, and audiences expect spectacle. “War Horse” delivers the goods because there’s style and substance. Good storytelling, enhanced by the best physical production to play The Bushnell in years, make “War Horse” a must-see tour-de-force.
National Theatre of Great Britain and Bob Boyett present “War Horse” Based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, adapted by Nick Stafford, in association with the Handspring Puppet Company; directed by Bijan Sheibani based on the original Tony Award-winning direction by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris; sets, costumes and drawings by Rae Smith; puppet design, fabrication and direction by Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones for Handspring Puppet Company; lighting by Paule Constable; director of movement and horse sequences, Toby Sedgwick; animation and projections by 59 Productions; music by Adrian Sutton; songs by John Tams; sound by Christopher Shutt; music director, Greg Pliska; associate puppetry director, Mervyn Millar; Through February 2, 2014 at The Bushnell, Hartford, CT. For tickets: 860-987-5900 or www.bushnell.org.
Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
