Heart on a String
As international phenomenon War Horse comes to Salford’s Lowry, we ask why it’s taken the National Theatre’s blockbuster show to convince audiences of puppetry’s emotional power as an art form – and that it’s not just for kids
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or some people, puppetry begins and ends with Hacker T Dog. Or, if you grew up in the 70s (guilty), Hartley Hare. Like colouring books and the dressing-up box, puppets are among the things we abandon after childhood. Puppetry’s origins go further back than the invention of television (3000 years, approximately): wire-controlled puppets have been unearthed in Egyptian tombs, and, in ancient Greece, productions of The Iliad were often staged with marionettes. Complexity of movement arrived far later, with the marionettes of 19th-century Italy progressing from two to eight strings; our own Mr Punch appeared around the same time, a derivation of the commedia dell’arte tradition. In spite of Punch’s anti-social tendencies – he’s a wife-killer who tricks the hangman into taking his place, and reneges on a pact with Satan – Punch and Judy shows thrive today, albeit in a sanitised form. Yet the common perception of puppetry as an entertainment primarily for children persists. Some West End shows have incorporated puppetry elements for a more grown-up audience – Shockheaded Peter and The Lion King being two fairly recent examples, with the former offering puppetry as bedtime nightmare, and the latter, puppetry as animal spectacle. Arguably, though, it’s taken the success of War Horse for theatregoers to realise how emotional puppetry can be. Since its premiere in 2007, the National Theatre production of Michael Morpurgo’s novel has been seen by over four million people, with the Broadway run bagging six prestigious Tony awards. It’s the story of a young boy called Albert and his beloved horse, Joey: requisitioned to fight for the English in World War I, and caught in enemy crossfire, Joey ends up serving on both sides. Albert, too young to enlist, embarks on a dangerous mission to find his horse and bring him home. The story reached an even bigger audience with the 2011 Steven Spielberg film adaptation, but while a strong seam of sentiment runs through the movie version of War Horse (for which criticising Spielberg seems pointless – clearly it’s what he loves to do), the stage show is a different beast. Thanks to the
December 2013
groundbreaking work of South African puppet company Handspring, the directors, Tom Morris and Marianne Elliott (a former associate director at the Royal Exchange), don’t need to try so hard. Handspring have been making puppet theatre for almost 30 years. There’s a fragile, human quality to their creations; they build puppets with a wide range of movement but only one facial expression, though that scarcely matters. In Or You Could Kiss Me (2010), two elderly South African men look for a way to say goodbye after a lifetime spent together. The simple act of one reaching across a table to touch the other’s arm becomes unbearably poignant.
“You have to learn how to pour your entire being into a mechanical object” Basil Jones
“Human puppets do something different,” explains Basil Jones, executive producer at Handspring, communicating from Cape Town via email. “They are metaphors for our struggle to live. And for the micro-struggles we have in our daily lives. Getting out of bed, sitting down in a chair... these ‘micro struggles’ are realised better by puppets acting as humans than by human actors themselves.” In the Japanese tradition of Bunraku, puppeteers would dress in black and disappear from view. With War Horse, there is no attempt to create an illusion of reality, as the puppeteers are visible beneath the animals’ skeletal, bamboo frames. “Puppetry is a highly skilled medium,” continues Jones. “You’re dealing with what amounts to an emotional prosthesis. You have to learn how to pour your entire being into a mechanical object, while at the same time reemphasising your own presence on stage... Three
puppeteers working together to manipulate one of the main animals in War Horse have to learn to coordinate their intentions and movements without speaking. This involves what we call ‘group mind’ – a bit like dancers have.” Matthew Forbes has worked with War Horse for four years as an actor and puppeteer, and has operated Joey’s head, Joey’s hind, and Baby Joey. He has also played the human role of Billy. Like Jones, he views acting and puppeteering as being of equal importance. “While working on the show, you become aware that the entire company of actors are puppeteers. If you don’t directly operate one of the horses, you are acting as a ‘fourth puppeteer.’ It is this role that adds the danger to the horses – it makes the audience believe they are true, living beasts.” This suspension of disbelief perhaps explains something about puppetry’s inherent magic; the audience are being asked to participate. “People sometimes refer to the show as poor man’s theatre – we have no fancy set, no glittery costumes,” Forbes says. “[But] because of this the audience is able to use their imagination to create the world of rural Devon and war-torn France... By letting the audience engage with the show, they get a deeper emotional involvement, similar to when you’re a child and a cardboard box becomes a spaceship. You become part of the story.” After its run at Salford’s Lowry, having become the venue’s best-selling show in its 13year history, War Horse moves on to the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh from 22 January to 15 February – coinciding with Puppet Animation Scotland’s Manipulate Visual Theatre Festival (31 Jan-8 Feb). Now firmly established as one of the highlights of Scotland’s cultural calendar, Manipulate is perhaps proof that interest in puppetry, which features prominently (though the brief has been widened to include animation, films and visual theatre), is on the rise. Highlights of the seventh festival include Polina Borisova’s Go!, which combines mime and physical theatre to explore the mind of an old woman retreating into the happier memories of her past; Stuffed Puppet Theatre’s Punch & Judy in
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Interview: Steve Timms Illustration: Beth Crowley
Afghanistan does what it says on the tin; Tortoise in a Nutshell’s Grit also explores life in a conflict zone, using shadow puppets to examine the stories behind the lens of a dead war photographer; and there’s a masterclass from Mervyn Millar, who has enjoyed a long relationship with Handspring as associate puppetry director with War Horse. Manipulate artistic director Simon Hart (who confesses a childhood fondness for Captain Scarlet) is particularly excited about the return of the Editta Braun Company, with physical dance piece Luvos Planet – a sequel to 2012’s well received Luvos. “One of the most important threads running through all the theatrical work I choose for Manipulate is that the dramatic arc and narrative of a piece is driven by visual means,” Hart explains. “It’s not that I don’t programme pieces with words in them, but for me the visual elements are always the most significant, particularly because they so often create and sustain intriguing, non-linear narratives.” In Hart’s mind, understanding the precise meaning of a piece is less important than feeling some sort of emotional response. Puppetry’s contemporary influence is wider reaching than we might initially believe. Gaming technology continues to draw necessary knowledge from puppetry – when a programmer is creating a running action figure in Call of Duty: Ghosts, he needs to understand the fine detail of human physiology to make the movements look right – and Pixar animators work extensively with jointed figures to find and articulate fundamental insights into their characters. The seriousness of the art is perhaps best expressed by John Malkovich’s character in Being John Malkovich: he renounces acting for a new career as a puppeteer, reasoning that, “There’s the truth and there are lies, and art always tells the truth, even when it’s lying.” War Horse, Lyric Theatre, The Lowry, Salford, until 18 Jan, then 23 Jul to 20 Sep, £32-£50 www.warhorseonstage.com Manipulate Visual Theatre Festival, 31 Jan-8 Feb www.manipulatefestival.org
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