Writing and Melbourne and vampires, oh my.

I have a confession to make. When I was a tween, before I discovered fantasy and SF, I had a passion for horse stories. I loved animal stories in general, but the horse stories had me every single time.

My Friend Flicka, The Palamino Horse, Black Beauty, National Velvet, pretty much everything by Margeurite Henry, not to mention the Australian series, The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell and Mary Elwyn Patchett’s numerous series including The Brumby and Tam the Untamed. Some of my first fantasy books were reading about unicorns and winged horses, and of course The Horse and His Boy from the Narnia series.

Yep, I had it bad. If only my parents had given me an actual pony. It could totally have lived in my room with me.

Now I think about it, moving from horse stories to dragon stories, a la Pern, was a natural progression, and from there I moved on to all kinds of SF, fantasy, crime and horror. Nevertheless, I retain a soft spot for well told animal stories.

Enter, stage left, War Horse. I saw the film (I must confess partly because the recent Sherlock Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch, was in it and I wanted to see him in something else) and liked it well enough.

The prospect of a stage version, though, had me intrigued and excited. The puppetry and stagecraft of the stage version of The Lion King had impressed me and I wanted to see how those techniques would apply to concepts as large as life-sized horses and a whole world war on the stage.

I didn’t realise that War Horse originated as a book until after the show, but as I sat there watching the story unfold, I thought that it must have been from that genre. I recognised the traditional patterns of all of those books I’d read in my childhood. Particularly resonant was the typical tale of a young person (a boy, as is so often the case in these books, Albert in this case) and his intense, pure love for his horse (Joey). This pattern seemed at odds, though, with the much more violent, adult aspects of the story, with the horrors of war very clearly shown, including the deliberate shootings of both humans and animals.

It’s a juxtaposition that is a little jarring, and I think my 10-year-old self would have been deeply distressed by this production. Still, at 13 I might have loved it, though probably I’d have cried. Hell, I’m a full grown adult now and I still got very emotional, particularly at the fates of the animals.

The puppetry in War Horse is absolutely brilliant. The horse constructs are complex and move with surprising naturalism, from the distinctive gait of a colt to the heaving of a chest, post-gallop, and the flicking of an equine tail.

Each horse has three operators, and they don’t just move the limbs, head, tail and torso. They make sounds and are hugely physically expressive. They are literally and figuratively the animating spirit of the horses. When one of the animals dies and the puppeteers slowly withdraw, stand at attention and then, as one, leave the stage, I had tears in my eyes. I was watching the spirit leave that horse, and it was sad.

Anthropomorphism provokes a strong emotional response in me, and I found myself much more involved in the horses – and even the hilarious goose at the farm who likes to, well, goose everyone – than the human cast. In the first act I sometimes felt the puppet animals were more emotionally complex and realistic than some of the people.

The second half addresses this lack, with Albert suffering through so much in his search for Joey on the battlefields of France and losing his faith. He finally gains the emotional texture to lift the character out of the simple, broad strokes of archetype to a person as real as Joey the horse has become.

Oddly, having seen the film took some of the excitement out of the play for a while, as I thought I knew what was coming next. However, the stage show plot differs in some respects to the film, which was a boon when I suddenly realised in one section that I didn’t know what happened to these people. The suspense returned. I knew how the big picture would end, but not the lives of the other characters.

On the whole, War Horse is an excellent production. I haven’t spent any time here talking about the wonderful exeuction of the lighting, backdrop design, the battle sequences, the vocal soundscapes with the beautiful singing, the general sound design, and the costuming. It’s a handsome production, beautifully performed, even though the humans are less complex than they could be. The puppets of course are extraordinary, with their wonderful puppeteers, transcending their shapes of wood and wire, and that’s a bit of theatre magic totally worth the price of entry.

War Horse is on at the Arts Centre, Melbourne until 10 March 2013, tickets from $79.90 for B Reserve. See more at the Arts Centre site.

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, smartphone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.

When Tim and I travel, we like to catch a little theatre if we can. This can be a little tricky when visiting a non-English-speaking country. Luckily, we both love Shakespeare and are very familiar with a lot of the Bard’s work. This means that if a local production of a play we’re familiar with is on, we’ll try to see it. We already know the plot and we can concentrate on other elements, like stagecraft and local cultural influences.

I have seen ‘Anthony and Cleopatra’ in Italian, with Caesar and the Senate all dressed in Zegna suits. I’ve seen a brillilant Polish theatre company make ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in to a dark, disturbing and powerful work about sexual shame and how forgiveness and healing can come from love. Remembering the gentle and moving power of Thisbe’s speech at the end of this production still makes my skin tingle.

Yohangza Theatre Company’s take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream is, if you’ll excuse the pun, poles apart from the dark vision I saw in Krakow – but only in mood and theme. The same excellence is there, and the same infusion of cultural interpretation of Shakespeare’s work to great new effect. It feels slightly like cheating to have surtitles in English, as most of the production is in Korean, but there is a smattering of English used to entertaining effect as well.

This show is a pared down version of the play – only the key plots of the two sets of lovers and the battle between the fairy king and queen remain. After that, however, most bets are off as this small, multi-skilled cast throw themselves into the story with the kind  of energy that makes you think they’ve been consuming nothing but guarana for a month.

Puck is split into two mischievous sprites, called duduri, portrayed with wicked verve by Jung Woo-Keun and Kim Sang-Bo. In this version, Ajumi/Bottomis a woman gathering herbs, and jealous Dot/Titania uses the Duduri to trick her philandering husband Gabi/Oberon into falling in love with the earthy, unlovely mortal.

Meanwhile, the original story of Hang/Lysander and Beok/Hermia running off, only to be followed by Loo/Demetrius and Ik/Helena, with the sprites managing to get both men doting upon Helena, is the one we’ve come to know. Plotwise, anyway.

Yohangza’s production is, as mentioned, filled with exhuberance and energy. Bawdy, skillful, funny and delightful, it’s a joy from start to finish. The cast dash about playing mortals and fairies, playing musical instruments in between. They dance, they leap and bound around the stage and, occasionally, through the audience. There are some inspired stylised fight scenes and physical humour which is both exquisite and hilarious. This is Shakespeare, South Korean style, incorporating Korean concepts in story telling and mythology in the weave of the tale.

It’s a great looking show too – the make up, costumes, spare set design (with it’s little twinkling star field that lights up whenever the stage goes dark) make it lovely and refreshing to take in.

I felt lighter after watching Yohangza’s troupe zip through their show with such playful joie de vivre. I  felt refreshed, entranced and tickled pink. Also a little gobsmacked at the unfailing energy of the cast, who ran through the audience to wait in the hall outside and proceeded to pose for photos in full make-up, to the clear delight of the crowd who pulled out cameras and mobile phones to take advantage of the moment.

Yohangza Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is on at the Playhouse at The Arts Centre from 8-11 September 2010. If you want to see Shakespeare through the eyes of anothe culture, and have some wonderful clownish fun while doing so, you should head along!