Playwright: Nick Stafford, adapted from the novel by Michael Morpurgo. At: Broadway in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace, 151 W. Randolph St. Tickets: 800-775-2000; www.broadwayinchicago.com; $30-$105. Runs through: Jan. 5
In the 1800s, it was possible to feature live horses in plays (cf. Mazeppa, The Wild Horse of Tartary), but with the fashion for smaller theaters, the only dobbins seen onstage for most of the 20th century were vaudeville clowns and the wire-sculpture dancers in Peter Shaffer's Equus. Then in 1997, The Lion King's Julie Taymor showed us what puppets could do, ushering in a new age of zoocentric narrativesin this case, Michael Morpurgo's tale, adapted by Nick Stafford, of the British cavalry horses who served in World War I.
Although the story was meant for youthful readers, our anthropomorphic hero is no Disneyfied toy. Joey and his adolescent caretaker, Albert, quickly learn to communicate with one another, but the only dialogue that we hear is rendered in English (including conversations in what we are told are German and French). The adventures the boy and his horse encounter are not sugary pre-school fare, either: Both must endure backbreaking labor, life-threatening danger, and agonizing injury. Both will watch comrades die. Both will discover within themselves survival skills never before anticipated, and both will despair of reuniting in the idyllic Devonshire home they recall.
We follow them for every hoofprint of their journey, toovividly depicted through animated screen projections and a score of martial music. We clearly see the cane-and-fabric mannequins' operators (kokens for the foal Joey, later concealed beneath the prosthetic shell of the full-grown stallion), but so accurately does Toby Sedgwick's quadrupedal choreography replicate equine body language that from the first moments, we accept themnot like the adults we are, but with the primal affection of childrenas the beasts they represent. Opening night audiences, stone-faced through scenes of soldiers fleeing artillery fire, wept shamelessly at Joey's entrapment by barbed wire and whimpered in fear during one terrifying moment when he faces imminent execution.
This is not to depreciate the production's two-footed artists: Andrew Veenstra makes a worthy companion to our mighty steed, as do Jason Loughlin and Andrew May as a pair of horse-whispering military officers and Brian Keane as a tough-talking field sergeant. The show belongs to the personnel of the Handspring Puppet Company, however, who bring to life everything from shark-like armored tanks to irascible farmyard geese.
It's only in town for three weeks. Don't forget your hankies.