I’ve spent the last few days deciding exactly what I got from the experience of going to see the play War Horse.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that I got many many things!

It was a bit of a stone henge moment–where I got more from the experience of going there than actually seeing the play itself.

Basically my feelings about War Horse are summarized with this thought I had, “These people and their pets!”

The story is from a children’s book written by British author Michael Morpugo and sadly the play feels like a children’s story.

Maybe I’ve participated in too many acting exercises.

Gee, about ten years ago I worked with two other artists for a number of months on a collaboration project. One of the artists was a playwrite, Robert Morgan, and the other a singer, Jerry Brodey, and then there was me, an author.

It was early in my career and I think it really changed me.

The amount of expertise that I saw in both these artists was astounding and impressive!

We were working at an inner city school downtown that had a large Portuguese and Asian population, trying to develop a play for the holidays that would encompass respect for all religions.

The project never quite panned out, I mean we did end up putting on a production with the students at the end of the school year, but we never were successful in writing a play that appealed to all religions. 

During the course of that process Jerry and Robert led the group in all kinds of acting exercises.

I remember the way Robert jumped up onto the stage and examined the lights and facilities to see what we had at our disposal. I remember the way Jerry led us in inclusion exercises–such a wise peaceful soul!

Oh the discussions we had!

Then years later I’ve been to various venues where actors led us in exercises, icebreakers, you name it.

Maybe it was that I’ve done too many of these, because when I was watching War Horse, I could practically here the stage manager/director (can’t remember the term for him) calling out, “AND FREEZE!”

Upstage, downstage, centre stage, etc.

And even though the play has won a Tony award, I thought to myself, “meh”.

I think the biggest problem they had was the fact that the main character of the story is the horse.

You can’t have a horse on stage!

What if someone lets off a camera flash for goodness sakes and it gallops into the orchestra seating crushing all the customers???

So instead they made the horse a puppet. They had to.

And yes, the puppets were ingeniously designed, they had springs in their ankles so the way their hooves left the ground was completely realistic. Three puppeteers manoeuvred the ‘beast’. One puppeteer dressed in brown moved the head, and when the horse was big enough (they start the story when Joey is just a colt) there are two men in brown inside the horse and the actors even leap up on the puppet’s back.

I wonder if the play didn’t win the Tony because of the puppetry! (It certainly wasn’t for the story! The story is blah.)

They always say in theatre that the audience ends up ignoring the people working the puppets–but somehow all during the play, I could not.

And I’ve been trying to figure out why.

The story: A horse gets sold away from its young owner and has to work in World War I, blah, blah blah and eventually the young owner enlists to get him back.

I don’t feel like I’m actually giving anything away. What would you expect would happen? The story’s called War Horse so there’s got to be a horse and a war in it!

By the way, there’s one scene in the story where this German officer chastises this German soldier for caring so much for a horse when so many of his companions and fellow HUMANS have perished all around him and I thought, “YES! EXACTLY!”

I wonder if it’s a third world thing.

Is it because I come from a poor country that I can’t seem to get into this intense caring about animals?

Don’t get me wrong, I hate seeing animals suffer. When I was in Pakistan I saw animals in the most pitiful states–and people in just as pitiful states!

And it really bothered me to see the animals suffering, but it bothered me just as much to see the people suffering.

That does not seem to be the case in the west.

People seem to think that somehow animals are more ‘innocent’. Their suffering is what? More poignant?

Baloney.

Suffering is suffering.

I did try to care.

But the play was also a LOT about the first world war, and there’s a moment when one of the British soldiers meets one of the German soldiers in no-man’s land and there’s a comment about talking things over instead of blowing each other up in a war, and I thought, “HOW IRONIC!” This while these same western countries have troops on the ground invading Muslim countries!

Don’t they get it?

It’s as ironic as Thomas Jefferson helping to free the thirteen colonies from British rule while he himself owned hundreds of slaves!

It’s as ironic as the French chafing under Nazi rule in the movie Casablanca while the French are occupying the city of Casablanca and all of Morocco!

So perhaps that too somewhat dampened my enthusiasm for the equestrian drama that is War Horse!

I also wonder if the same phenomenon that happened when I first began writing is beginning to happen now with theatre. And that is I’m beginning to see through the techniques.

Can you imagine how frustrating that is?

When I was growing up, I never analysed the stories I read! I immersed myself in them wholeheartedly. Even when the stories had flaws, like with Jane Eyre and L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle I could easily look past them and just enjoy the stories for what they were.

Now, so many years later, it takes a heck of a lot to blow me away when it comes to any type of book. I’ve read New York Times bestsellers, or tried to read them in some cases, and thought, ‘meh’.

I’ve read books that have won the highest awards imaginable and have thought, ‘meh’.

When I really want to enjoy a story, what do I do but go back to books I loved before I learned to write.

If that’s happening then it doesn’t bode well for me going to the theatre!

At the end of it, the only reason I stood up during the standing ovation was because otherwise I couldn’t see anything.

I asked the lady beside me what she thought of the play. She said, “Spectacular!”

Hmm. That says it all.

And as hubby and I filed out, I took a better look at the audience. 95% white middle class, and I thought again, ‘hmm These people do know their audience.’

They have done what is important. They have entertained their fan base.

It’s just too bad the story wasn’t more universal.

And as we were leaving, I said to my hubby, “Jersey Boys was better.”

He agreed.