Beautiful and much easier to clean up after!
From: authfriend jst...@panix.com
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sat, April 16, 2011 9:45:06 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Warhorse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwu_d0xRhdI
This is a breathtaking video of one of the most
remarkable pieces of stagecraft I've ever seen. It's
a demonstration of a life-sized horse puppet, one of
several used in the British play Warhorse, which
just opened in NYC.
Each horse is manned by three puppeteers, two inside
the horse (but with their legs visible) and one fully
visible at all times who stands next to the horse's
head and controls its head and neck (he's also the
horse's voice).
The puppets are anatomically accurate but not at all
realistic (you have to take a look to get what I mean).
And yet the illusion of horse-ness is amazing, nearly
miraculous (and most likely is even more magical on
stage under theatrical lighting; this demonstration
was filmed outdoors in daylight).
Note that the guy in uniform holding the reins is an
actor playing the horse's human handler. The man in
suspenders by the horse's head is one of the puppeteers,
in a sense the externalized mind of the horse. You
aren't really supposed to see him, and indeed, he
virtually disappears as the illusion takes hold.
