A magnificent, exhila rating feat is taking place at Lincoln Center. Over the course of nearly three hours, the London import “War Horse” takes us to a farm in Devon, England, then to the killing fields of WWI. We marvel as life-size horse puppets gallop onstage — with actors riding them. We cringe in horror as troops charge and die under full-on shellings.
But if “War Horse” is theater as epic spectacle, it’s also theater as shared, intimate emotion.
Adapted from Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 children’s book, the show follows the shared journey of a 16-year-old farm lad, Albert (Seth Numrich), and his chestnut horse, Joey.
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Brought together when Joey was a foal, the two are separated when the mount is sold to the British Cavalry and packed off to the French front. An inconsolable Albert enlists, hoping to retrieve his best friend.
What makes the show so powerful is the way the storytelling and the stagecraft are intricately melded. Directed with poetic ingenuity by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris for the National Theatre of England, “War Horse” is full of breathtaking moments.
Though the horses don’t look realistic — their cane-and-gauze armature is visible, as are their handlers — they are lifelike, with twitching ears and heaving flanks, trembling in expectation, fear or agony.
This makes Joey’s ordeal all the more wrenching, because as soon as we meet him, we feel he’s as alive, as full of personality as any of the humans around him. And those are shown with an always kind eye — Peter Hermann plays a melancholy German officer who protects Joey and his war buddy, the black stallion Topthorn.
This is only one of the many empathetic bonds the show creates: not only among those onstage, but also between the characters and their audience. “War Horse” never talks down to its viewers, no matter how young they may be.
Some have branded the show as sentimental. Have we become so jaded that people are called suckers for crying during a good, old-fashioned tale? “War Horse” isn’t sentimental: It’s just not afraid to be emotional. Ultimately, the show succeeds because it tells children and reminds adults that some of life’s joys are made great by terrible hardships.