It really shouldn’t be a surprise that War Horse is taking Broadway by storm. Reviews at the weekend – raving about the stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s children’s book – mirrored those of 2007 when it first opened at the National Theatre in London.
The reviews garnered by the Broadway premiere at the Lincoln Theater Center suggests a long run in New York and audiences were wowed by the life-sized puppets of horses created by Cape Town-based Handspring Puppet Company.
Speaking from a New York hotel last week Handspring founders Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones were nervous about the impending reviews.
They needn’t have worried. The Wall Street Journal praised the “visually poetic, technically self-assured craftsmanship”, while the Chicago Tribune said “to experience War Horse on stage is to wonder how these puppets manage to etch themselves so deeply into your soul”.
In reference to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film adaptation of the novel, Ben Brantley of The New York Times wondered whether anything on screen could replicate the specific thrill of watching Joey (the horse) take on substance and soul out of disparate artificial parts right before our eyes.
(The film is live action and opens on our local screens in February, after a December 28 opening in the UK).
“Our agent said to us: ‘If you think War Horse was big on the West End, it’ll be three times crazier in New York,’” said Kohler.
And he was right, with giant-seized examples of their puppets and puppet designs up in Polo Ralph Lauren’s flagship store on Madison Avenue and a fundraiser at the Lincoln Center becoming the talk of the town.
For once the American puppeteers got a chance to sit down and watch Joey the war horse wander around the tent, manipulated by the British puppeteers, flown out specially for the occasion.
Not only is the production off to a promising start, but a talk Kohler and Jones delivered at the TED 2011 Conference has gone viral. (Technology Education and Design is a global non-profit organisation dedicated to ideas worth spreading and is last conference was in March in California.)
In the 18-minute clip Kohler and Jones talk about the desperate struggle of “dead objects trying to live” on stage and it is fascinating watching them demonstrate how they progressed from a hyena’s subtle paw to a horse that breathes and flicks its ears on stage.
It was a logistical nightmare getting puppeteers out from Canada, the UK and South Africa all to the US, but it was worth the effort.
“It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done,” Jones enthused .
Kohler said they never thought War Horse would be this successful and remembered that the first time it was staged at the National Theatre four years ago it was three and a half hours.
“A friends of ours from Cheek By Jowl said to us: ‘I think you’ve got a massive hit on your hands.’ But we didn’t believe him,” said Kohler.
They were concentrating on the panicked calls from backstage about someone stepping on a horse’s tail and breaking it and the audience members falling asleep mid-performance.
Some judicious editing ensued and War Horse has since transferred to West End’s New London Theatre to sold-out performances and will soon play in Toronto, Canada.
It takes about 10 months to make a set of horses – hand-made around bent and moulded cane – and they’ll be overseeing the making of a new set for the forthcoming Canadian production at their factory in Capricorn Park.
Jones and Kohler were in the original touring performance of William Kentridge’s Woyzeck on the Highveld, which premiered at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown on 1992.
That show has literally circumnavigated the globe and they eventually gave their puppets to a German museum. “Because we thought we’d never have to do it again,” said Jones.
But Kohler had to re-carve the puppets for a recent Australian theatre festival and that process was interrupted when they had to make a new set of horses for the US War Horse production, so they had to go back to the museum to reclaim some of the puppets.
That production of Woyzeck on the Highveld has just left the US and is on its way to Milan and Paris, still attracting attention wherever it plays.
With shows on both sides of the Atlantic, one has to wonder whether War Horse will ever put in an appearance at the southern tip of Africa, since this is where the horses are made.
That’s not a decision either Kohler or Jones could take, but they know the production team is working on redesigning the show to be performed in a proscenium-style theatre – it’s currently geared around being performed in an arena style.
If this works and the production can be toured around the US, then there’s no limit to where it can travel.
There has been much interest from South African producers to bring the show out, “but it could take a while”, said Jones.
First up, though, the couple have to return to Cape Town via a short stopover in London to check up on the West End production.
They need to be back here for May rehearsals of Janni Young’s Ouroboros (which had its premiere at last year’s National Arts Festival).
“Adrian and I will revisit Ouroboros with her and present it as a Handspring Puppet Company production,” said Jones of the 2010 Standard Bank Young Artist for Drama.
l Ouroboros will have a run at the Baxter Theatre from June 1 to 11.