War Horse

This play is just bril­liant.  So many chances to be maudlin, sen­ti­mental, to dilute the suf­fer­ing of humans by con­cen­trat­ing on the suf­fer­ing of anim­als — but none of those pits fallen into.  Present­ing WWI through the story of the horses who were shipped out for the cav­alry only serves to bring out the human tragedy even more — in the atti­tude of indi­vidu­als on both sides towards the anim­als they have brought into the hor­rors of 20^th cen­tury war­fare — the fate of the cav­alry faced by machine guns; the use of horses to drag sup­plies and guns through the mud; people who asser­ted their human­ity by the way they treated anim­als.   Life-size horse pup­pets each anim­ated by 3 pup­pet­eers.  One of the most mov­ing moments was when one horse died, and the pup­pet­eers left it, its anim­at­ing spirit fad­ing into the wings.   In a way, the only thing that jarred was the happy end­ing, when boy and horse were re-united and returned home.  It prob­ably didn’t hap­pen like that.