War Horse

On Wednesday January 5th we went to see a show called War Horse in the New London Theatre.  The theatre itself does not look that large from the street corner on which it is located, however once inside it is a large room with three tiered audience sections.  The thrust stage extended somewhat into the audience and could be well viewed from everywhere.  This is the most favorable type of theatre in my opinion, especially if the stage was raised because it creates more visibility for the audience and the actors are closer to the audience.  During the pay  some actors even ran through the bottom rows of the crowd and sat in the seats.  The Wednesday night performance was sold out.  The play was fantastic, despite the fact that had I read the synopsis I probably would not have chose to see it myself.  It was about a boy Albert and his horse Joey, whom he raises himself.  The horses and animals in the play were puppets moved by actors across the stage with great life-like movement.  Joey the horse was constructed to allow two people to fit inside of him and another to control his head movements.  Although the whole interior structure of the horse was visible, it was amazing how readily the audience believed that it was a living animal.  The sounds and lighting were also very effective to the overall performance, as was the use of fog and smoke.  The acting was very authentic and heartfelt by all the actors and actresses.  Albert, the protagonist, was amazing and had great energy and spirit throughout whole play.  I was very impressed with the minimal scenery that was still able to convey such strong moods for each scene through the lighting and sound effects.  The war scenes with the gunfire blasts and smoke were very powerful, as was the end of play.  There were even a few short songs performed by the narrator that contrasted nicely with the ominous war story.  Most of the audience was moved by the performance as a whole at the conclusion.  It was a very touching story and a great, captivating play.