War Horse and Grace - Broadway Reviews

It seems like the holidays were so long ago, when I returned to work last week everything went back to being busy right away.  Of course 3 shows that I really wanted to see had to be closing right after the holidays - War Horse, Grace and Chaplin.

The good news is I found time (and money) to squeeze in 2 out of the 3 shows, War Horse and Grace.  I'm sad I wasn't able to make it to Chaplin, I read some great things about Rob McClure. But I'm hoping I can at least find a couple videos of him performing on YouTube to make me feel a little better.

Here are my reviews of War Horse and Grace, both of which unfortunately played their last performances this past weekend on January 6th.

WAR HORSE
I thoroughly enjoyed War Horse.  The best way I can describe the show is it's the first time I've seen a play that made me feel like I was watching a movie.  The background music by the orchestra and the talented singers set a mood throughout the play that was similar to the way music sets your emotions throughout movies.

The show is famous for it's use of puppets and now I see why.  The puppeteers from Handspring Puppet Co. were AMAZING!  Their movements for the horses were extremely realistic and precise, down to even moving the ears and flicking the tail in accordance with the horse's movements.  Although seeing it live is really the only way to see how life like these puppets really were, the below video shows some great tidbits from the show.

I had high expectations for War Horse and it lived up to all of them; large and very talented cast, emotional story that made me cry more than once, great props and scenery and strong music to set the atmosphere that you weren't in a theater watching a play but that you were part of a real story.  Now that I caught the play before it closed I'll have to watch the movie to see how it compares.

GRACE
Grace was back to the type of Broadway play I'm used to seeing, the show depends on the performance of the actors as the main way to tell the story, the scenery is good but not over the top and a couple of celebrities are thrown in to raise ticket sales.

I'll admit my sole reason for seeing Grace was to check out Paul Rudd's first time on broadway.  I've always thought he was a cutie and wanted to see this show in case he never comes to broadway again.

I actually ended up liking the show much more than I originally thought I was going to.  The description on the web site makes it sound like the typical "What is religion and what is god" play.  It was more intriguing than I expected and like all good plays left me with some interesting concepts to think about afterwards.

Interestingly, Grace starts out by showing you the series of murders that take place at the end of the play and then goes into a rewind effect where the last moments of each person's life is replayed in reverse order.  At the end of the play we see the sequence again but in normal order.  Since you know what's ultimately going to happen throughout the play the question then becomes, why did this happen?

The play focuses on the question of if God exists and if so, how do we know?  Each character displays different situations that either are so terrible that God could not possibly exist or so perfect that it's hard to explain them happening without the presence of God.  The play is full of uncomfortable moments, however I don't think any of them were quite as shocking or unsettling as they were meant to be.  The play overall was done well but it left me wanting more.  It would have had to go farther to leave a real lasting effect on me.

The four person cast included Paul Rudd as main character Steve, Kate Arrington as his wife Sara, Michael Shannon in a wonderfully awkward performance as Sam and Ed Asner as the greatly entertaining exterminator Karl.  While the performances of the entire cast were great the outline of each character was not very deep.  Each character's story was very predictable, which kept me from getting too attached to any of them.

Sara (Kate Arrington), Steve (Paul Rudd) and Sam (Michael Shannon)

Michael Shannon's portrayal of Sam, a hurting man who's fiance recently died, was my favorite part of the play.  His hurting comes across without being too forced and throughout the play you want to learn more about him.

As someone who has always been up and down about if God is actually out there, Grace made a lot of points that I could relate to.  I especially liked a remark that Sara made referring to the relationship between her and Sam, "If we're here beside each other, we must be here for each other, right?"