Puppy

Welcome to our newest addition!

War Horse

Okay.  I've been pining over this title long before Steven Spielberg got his greedy magical fingers on the novel.  A children;s novel written in the 80s, mind you.  My first exposure to the story was not the trailer for the current film.  Nor was it the novel itself.  I first found out about War Horse from a blurb about the play making waves in London several years ago.

A play featuring life size puppets premiered at the National Theatre in London in October 2007.  Amid the excitement of moving to Hawaii for my first full time position, I apparently missed out on the hype.  It made waves again a few years later in 2009 when it was remounted for another successful run prior to transferring to the West End.  In 2010 news broke that the play was coming State side for a limited engagement.  The horses charged onstage of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre in NYC, March 2010 and they've stood strong ever since.

What drew my attention.  The puppets.










The puppets were so utterly convincing and beautiful I made it a goal to see this play before it closed on Broadway.  I made tentative plans to see it in the Spring in 2011.  That never panned out.  After the announcement that  show would run indefinitely, I needn't worry up coming up with airfare or trying to get the time off of work.

This fall, fortunate smiled and placed us in the vicinity of NYC for a wedding in the family over Thanksgiving.  While I was initially crushed to be missing a friend's wedding in Honolulu the same weekend (come on, who wouldn't want to head to the islands in November?) thoughts of War Horse kept my creative side salivating.

I finally saw the show I had been pining and lusting after for several years.  The story is simple, but I was so taken by the sheer majesty of the puppets...the articulation and expression this pile of wicker and joints controlled by four people managed...I was so sucked in, so transported, I completely forgot we were NOT watching real animals onstage.

The horses, Joey in particular, pulls the plot forward through the trench marred and wire strewn country side of Central Europe during the Great War.  Indifferent to the war itself, the horse's interactions with his various human owners and horse companions show a deeper side of humanity with than you'd think was possible of  a puppet.  We forget how horrific war can be.  And in the face of the new technologies, the horses the fought and pulled and perished alongside the millions of human lives are often forgotten.  It was a huge shift in the mechanic of warfare...and yet the equine charged forward into the abyss... 

Words fail me for this theatrical event.  It was one of the most satisfying performances I've seen in a while (keeping in mind I see most opening nights at the Guthrie).  See it.  You won't regret it...

Where have I been?

I have been alive.   Sort of.  Between busy schedules and bouts of seasonal depression I've had a hard time bringing myself to write anything.  And after such a long hiatus I do not know where to begin.  White Christmas?  My Thanksgiving trip to NYC and War Horse? Holiday blues?  New Years resolutions? Upcoming projects?

I will get back in the swing of things.

In the meantime, take a peak at one thing I HAVE been keeping on too of...cooking