National Theatre's “War Horse” at Academy of Music

A phalanx of horses, from young foals to huge stallions, expressively come to life in War Horse through the talents of the South African Handspring Puppet Company. These extraordinary creations snort and breathe, ears twitching and chests heaving; the main horse, Joey, whinnies appreciatively when his young master lovingly touches him.

Their frames are cane with aluminum spines, so they can be ridden. But the puppet animals are intentionally transparent, so the audience sees into their guts, and also so we see that each of them is manipulated by three real people inside.

Truth to tell, this World War I drama isn't so much a story about horses as an anti-war manifesto. Act I ends as the horses charge toward German guns and barbed wire, leap upwards then disappear in a flash of blinding light. In Act II a massive tank rolls towards Joey, who rears on his hind legs as the stage goes black.

Agrarian innocence

We're dealing here with the clash between agrarian innocence and the new age of mechanized warfare. Joey and other farm horses are commandeered to drag heavy artillery into battle, and then to bear their equally victimized riders into the face of automatic machine guns, barbed wire and tanks.

We meet Albert, the 15-year-old son of an alcoholic Devon farmer and a hard-working mum. When Dad buys a young horse named Joey at an auction, Albert joyously takes charge of the animal's care and feeding. But when World War I breaks out, Albert's father sells Joey into the cavalry that's bound for France. (More than a million British horses rode into that war; only 65,000 came home.)

When Albert finds out that the officer in charge of Joey has been killed and the horse reassigned, he lies about his age and enlists so he can search for his horse. Joey, meanwhile, is captured by German troops, surviving largely through the skills Albert taught him back on the farm.

Spielberg's version

This stage version differs vastly from the Steven Spielberg film. Spielberg focused on the relationship between the boy and his horse; the play concerns the horrors of war. Spielberg used real horses, of course. But on screen they became mere cinematic projections after a while.

The National Theatre's stage version, by contrast, unfolds live at each performance. Its battle scenes are violent, with vivid sound and lighting effects.

It ends differently, too. I confess to missing the film's focus on an old man and his granddaughter and a sentimental reunion.

Anti-Irish bias

The stage version is further undermined by its reliance on some low-comedy bits that include anti-Irish bias, some laughable German accents, and other indecipherable speeches. I had a mixed reaction, too, to the periodic appearances of a balladeer who strolls across the stage to sing about how we will be "only remembered for what we have done." At some points he's a distraction, yet his interjections provide a convenient device for changes of time and place.

Spielberg, in his typical fashion, gave us a neater and smoother ride. But of course there's nothing neat or smooth about war, which is precisely the point of this chaotic play.