Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The gait was unmistakably a horse's as the beast moved down the aisle and onto the Byham Theater stage in March to promote the coming of "War Horse" to Pittsburgh. The wiry outer shell and three puppeteers operating Joey, the loyal horse at the heart of the award-winning play, were lost in the authenticity of the movement. And that's just the way the humans like it.
11 comments:
I was lucky enough to get to see War Horse last week and more than any of the other technical and acting element in the show, I was blown away by the skill of the puppeteers. The show would really be nothing without the incredibly lifelike horse puppets that these puppeteers manage to create. The three performers who play the horse work with the machinery of the puppet to help it move in a very organic way making it seem like a real living, breathing thing to the audience. After flipping through the program and seeing STREB mentioned in one of the puppeteer’s bios, I became very curious about where all of the puppeteers come from. This article does a good job of answering that question: they come from everywhere. More important than their previous training is their ability to work together and function well as a part of a larger whole. What the three horse puppeteers that work each puppet make together is beautiful, but it is only possible when they each do only their part of the puppet, working cooperatively together and enjoying the process rather than taking over. This is an important lesson to learn for the success of any collaborative effort, and is something all of us could stand to pay attention to.
The closest I've come to experiencing War Horse is when I saw The Lion King, and that show new me away. The way that all the puppeteers made their animals move so perfectly, graceful and intense, was an incredible experience and I sat through the show completely stunned. i can only imagine how many time more amazing War Horse, with its life-sized, 3-man-operated horses, would be. Puppetry absolutely fascinates me, the way a person can be standing right next to a puppet, obviously operating it, yet the audience hardly notices because they are so involved by the puppet's movements and so drawn in by this alternate reality.
I first saw this show in Lincoln Center about two years ago, and was blown away. Not only is the story of War Horse touching and inspiring, but the work done by the puppeteers is astonishing, and I completely agree with what Margaret and Emma said about puppetry. When I think back to the experience I had as an audience member of War Horse, my mind automatically goes back to a very specific moment in the play: the moment when Topthorn dies. I'm not sure if this moment has transferred over into the tour of War Horse, but in Lincoln Center, when Topthorn dies, the three puppeteers controlling him are choreographed to take a step back away from Topthorn, and turn offstage. The way that this is choreographed makes it seem as if the soul of the horse is vanishing. In a way, the puppeteers controlling the horses make them come to life. I found it to be incredibly moving when the Topthorn's puppeteers vanished from his body, and left him alone and lifeless onstage. Anyone who gets the chance should definitely go see War Horse while it's on tour.
I just got back from seeing War Horse (and supporting one of my friends, who played Joey's head in today's performance!) and was blown away by how well integrated every element of the production was (especially the puppets). While the ensemble-building process for the horse puppeteers is long and intensive, it's curious that there's a company of 9 puppeteers who rotate through the main puppet characters. On any given performance, they must be prepared to tap into a shared place with any of their possible co-puppeteers. Jon tells me that he switches between Joey and Topthorn, nearly every other night, which while keeping the show fresh for them, must introduce some complication when all the puppeteers must be able to move and breathe as one animal.
Jess, Topthorn's death really hit home for me as well - there was something really amazing about the puppeteers scooting out and ceremonially marching off the stage, leaving just the dead body of the puppet behind. A beautiful moment.
I've never seen War Horse, but I hear it's wonderful. I'm sure that the pupeteering is amazing and that everyone is very talented. However, I am going to go on a bit of a tangent here. Tickets to shows that come through the Benedum are usually downright unaffordable for students. I mean, I would have LOVED to see War Horse, but I can't pay $80 to do so. They don't have any sort of student rush or discount prices. I know that this is the fault of the theatre itself and not necessarily the particular show because most other road houses I have been to have offered student prices at a certain time before curtain each night. This is something the Benedum may want to look into, because art should be for everyone. Not just those who have the money or the connections.
This is incredible. Truly unbelievable. so much was said about War Horse when it first came out. from the first picture I saw of this show i was stunned. I still have not had the privilege to see the show but have watched many many videos on it. It never gets old. How three humans in one manmade skeleton, essentially, can create a living breathing horse in front of our eyes will never make sense to me. I believe it speaks so much to the heart of what art is. I can't think of a single thing that requires more spirit and love of what you do than making yourself invisible under a puppet with two other people and putting yourself through strenuous physical activity every night simply so that an audience believes there is a horse on stage. Talk about some art. If thats not art, I don't know what is.
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I have been stunned by War Horse for quite some time now. Since it originally opened and pictures were released, I have been amazed by the work that went into this production. It is one of the most stunning productions I have seen in a long time and I truly hope I can see it again soon! The puppetry is unreal. I am just so full of words about this production. The design and movement was so amazingly done that no words can express the way I feel about them.
Pet peeve about reviews which seems to be the norm: no dates!
"Tuesday through Sunday. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday" doesn't tell me much when all I have to go by is the date in the byline. Why not be comprehensive about the information most pertinent to the audience? Anyway, seems more important to the reader than what kind of puppeteers they hire. This article actually reads to me more like a trade rag than a local paper depth piece on a cultural event. I've only seen the movie, so I don't have a lot to go on here, but it can't be a coincidence that the one thing everyone seems to want to talk about with this show is the horse. It looks like an amazing piece of artistry and I'm always impressed with the work of good puppeteers. We recently discussed the tradition of Bunraku puppet theatre in Japan in our Colloquium class and it came up that puppets can often evoke in audiences an empathy that actors cannot. One puppeteer framed the phenomena by pointing out that when we are watching an actor, whether we like it or not, we are aware that they are lying to us a little, that they have lives beyond the stage, beyond the character, that when the show is over they take off their costumes and their makeup and they go home. A puppet is more honest. A puppet has no life beyond what it is asking us to believe. I think this heightened empathy is similar to what a lot of people experience for animals in stories. I always feel worse for the horses that get shot in westerns than the cowboys. Old Yeller commands my sympathy with more authority than, say, the sickly dying grandmother. I think animals are often anthropomorphized to take on the most noble human traits, and are stand-ins for what we wish people were really like. And if they portray ignoble traits? Well they are only animals after all. I don't know about the play, but the movie "War Horse" suffered badly from this heightened empathy. The sound stage sappiness of the production value, the over-stated innocence and optimism of the young boy, and the irreproachable goodness of the horse all converged into a melodramatic orgy on the screen. I wonder if the stage version would suffer even more from the horse-puppet-empathy bifecta. I guess I'll never know, because I can't tell from the damn article what the show dates are.
Wow. Being a puppeteer for this show looks really challenging. I wonder how long the puppeteers had to work and live with each other to gain that trust. I also wonder if they all try to act together in order to create one horse or they all act to create sections of a horse, and the separate parts become one. I guess it all goes back to the trust, where the puppeteers trust the others to do their jobs correctly. On top of that, they have to fight to keep the horse alive. Most actors pretend to die on stage. Theses puppets must pretend and fight to live. I think this is an interesting thought. How does one act to live? I think this puppet is not only entertaining and beautiful to watch, but it also symbolizes life. How can we work together and create a single, living, breathing creature.
My mom recently saw war horse and all she could talk about was the puppets she couldn't stop raving about how amazingly real they seemed. not only are they absolutely stunning but they are truly unique works of art. the amount of work that would have to go into these puppets not only just to build them but to operate them it truly stunning they not only had to study how the animals looked and they're specific anatomy but ow that anatomy works and how they move and every spicific detail. truely amazing.
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