I should really never see shows with animals in them. I wept for a year after the
Lion King
when (SPOILER) Mufasa died and left Simba all alone in the savanna. Any of those dog-and-cat-adventure movies? I basically hyperventilate and hug my own animals so tight they can't breathe, smothering them with kisses. Don't get me started on having to read
Old Yeller
in elementary school. But, when my friend April asked if I wanted to see
War Horse
last night at the Queen Elizabeth, I said yes, with the caveat that I would be a crying mess the whole time.
War Horse
opened at the National Theatre when I was living in London and I read the original reviews, in which audiences described themselves as "weeping" and "emotionally drained." These reviews were also full of glowing praise for the Handspring Puppet Company's amazing life-size horse puppets, but I was fixated on the whole "Horse-has-to-leave-his-family-and-go-off-to-war" thing, which made me tear up right away, so I wasn't choosing to spend my limited London theatre budget on the show. Here in Vancouver, we have less options when it comes to shows, so it seemed liked a good idea to go see Broadway Across America's touring production.
Albert, Joey and Puppeteer
The play is based on a children's novel by Michael Morpurgo. It is the story of Joey, a hunter horse who is bought as a foal by the town drunk in a village in Devon, and raised lovingly by the drunk's son, Albert. Boy and horse quickly become best friends, and Albert is devastated when Drunk Dad sells Joey to the local cavalry officer on the eve of World War I, and shipped to the front lines in France. Joey and his best horsey-friend Topthorn see everything, from combat as cavalry horses, to the wounded as ambulance horses, and even get captured by the Germans and forced to pull machine guns across muddy fields at the battle of the Somme. Meanwhile, desperate to find his friend, Albert enlists and is himself shipped overseas, and between cowering in trenches and going Over the Top, is always searching for Joey.
First, a few technical things about the show. The production values are fantastic. There is an animated scrim across which scenes (first of Devon in happier times, then of heaving seas as Joey is shipped, terrified, across the English Channel, to the battlefields) play, in beautiful pen and ink sketches. The costumes and sets are beautiful. And the puppets - well. From the first time the "foal" Joey trots onto the stage, operated by three puppeteers, you see a real character, and forget the people operating the machine. Joey's ears flick, his chest heaves as he breathes heavily, his tail swishes. Grown-up Joey is even more impressive, so large he can be ridden by the actors playing Albert and Major Nichols. So - the puppets. If you see it for no other reason, you see it for the puppets. In emotional moments I distracted myself by concentrating on the puppeteers - who was operating Joey's tail and how? Who was moving his ears, who was making the sound of his breath.
There are some small touches in the show which I really enjoyed. The English, French and German officers all speak in English - but cannot understand each other, a neat trick purely for the audience's entertainment that works well. There is a hilarious goose puppet who rules the roost (literally and figuratively) at Albert and Joey's home farm.
Despite turning my attention to the technical details of the production, and attempting to focus on the artifice in order to detach a bit from the story, I still cried the entire way through. And the script - well, it's simplistic and pushes every possible button it can, about war, life, death, friendship and the bond between human and horse. I cried when baby Joey and Albert bonded. I cried when Albert hugged Joey and said "We will be together forever" (come on people, this is called
War Horse
, of course that wasn't going to happen). I cried as Joey and Topthorn stood terrifed on the deck of the ship taking them to war. I cried when Joey and Topthorn were ridden into their first battle, lamenting at the cruelty of man to inflict human conflict and folly on innocent animals. And it only got worse from there, as the war only got worse from there. I tried to distract myself I really did. As Albert wandered around the trenches calling for Joey, I decided he must have some mental defect, to be so focused on the damn horse when he could die any minute - but cried anyway. By the time Joey found himself trapped by barbed wire in No Man's Land in 1918, 4 years later (and at the end of Act 2), I was done. DONE. And cried to the end of the show. I'm even crying now freaking blogging about it.
Joey and Topthorn riding into war.
I called my mom this morning to tell her about the show and even started crying as I lamented all the horrible things that Joey sees in his time as a War Horse (she laughed at me of course, and I did too). "Why did all those things have to happen to poor Joey," I whined down the phone, laughing and weeping at the same time. "It's just too much for one little horse!"
"Well, don't you think the horse's experience is a metaphor for our experience in war, and what every innocent young boy shipped overseas felt?" said my mother. She's pretty smart sometimes, my mother. Because that's exactly what it was about. I was just crying too hard to notice.
War Horse plays at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre until September 28, 2013.
Best friends forever, Albert and Joey.