The play was great, as in " Wow, that was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen." It's a story about a farm kid and his horse, and World War I.
This from the author in the program notes: "So I conceived the notion that I might write the story of the First World War as seen through a horse's eyes, a horse that would be reared on a Devon farm, by the forebears of the people I knew, a horse that is sold off the farm to go to the front as a British cavalry horse, is captured by the Germans and used to pull ambulances and guns, winters on a French farm. It would be the horse's eye view of the universal suffering of that dreadful war in which ten million people died, and unknown millions of horses."
The horse (and other animals) is a life sized puppet controlled by several puppeteers. The photos from the program show how stylized the horse puppets are, but the effect is amazingly real even though there's no attempt made to hide the puppeteers (two under the horse, one standing next to the head, and sometimes another one or two at the back of the horse). In the bottom photo, the man standing behind the horse's neck is not an actor - he's a puppeteer manipulating the head and neck movements.
An unforgettable night of theater.
