Los Angeles Times
- Recommended
"...Yes, it's sentimental. Yes, there are scenes that might have given even as inveterate a melodramatist as Charles Dickens pause. But this 2011 best play Tony winner, which launched its national tour at the Ahmanson Theatre on Friday, takes the audience on a thrilling roller-coaster ride in which innocence is thrown into a man-made hell. For a couple of nerve-racking hours, humanity's very soul seems to depend on the survival of one galloping steed."
Variety
- Recommended
"...But beyond the advantages afforded the text by a pageant-style presentation, the sets, music, sound, lighting and puppetry continue to collaborate in a total theater experience sure to dazzle, as they used to say, children from 8 to 80."
LA Weekly
- Not Recommended
"...That this beautifully staged circus of unapologetic shlock should win such a prize is an indicator of either how our commercial theater has sunk, or how fundamentally flawed or compromised the Tony Awards have become."
Backstage
- Recommended
"...Through its elaborate production design, full-size horse puppets, and stunning visual and technical effects, "War Horse" is both spectacle and a profound meditation on the value of all life, human and otherwise."
LAist
- Recommended
"...Thankfully, the new production at the Ahmanson is a triumph of theater craft, a thrilling combination of brilliant direction and exquisite puppetry that is, to distill the show into a word, magnificent."
Edge
- Recommended
"...A story that will appeal to both adults and children, "War Horse" is a gorgeously realized production that might be a simple (and occasionally confusing) story, but the lavish production is anything but."
Stage and Cinema
- Recommended
"...I mean, after all, War Horse doesn't even lay a claim to sophistication, except on a technical level: this is children's theater. High class children's theater, to be sure, and you'd be foolish to keep the children at home when you see it, but it is children's theater just the same. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. We could use more and better children's theater. But it is as spectacle that the real beauty of War Horse stands most proudly."
LA Splash
- Recommended
"...War Horse was a highly enjoyable show with truly fine performances."
Examiner
- Recommended
"...See it because War Horse, based on the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo and adapted by Nick Stafford in association with Handspring Puppet Company and directed by Bijan Sheibani based on the original staging by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, is a stand alone, unique theatre experience, one that you will never forget."
BlogCritics.org
- Recommended
"...Don't miss it!"
LA Stage Times
- Recommended
"...I probably don't have much of anything original to add to the chorus of commentary on this exquisite National Theatre production, but here's a traveler's tip for War Horse fans – if you're in London, take the backstage tour at the National."
OC Register
- Recommended
"...If you can accept those moments in Nick Stafford's script, then "War Horse" will move you in a way that other plays seldom do. But even unsentimental stoics will be amazed by this production's most celebrated element: its lifelike and amazingly expressive puppets."
Neon Tommy
- Recommended
"...The strength of "War Horse" resides in its ability to reel in the audience with not only the entrancing artistry of Joey's personality and structure, but also the binding friendship between Albert and Joey. By the end of the play, the audience finds itself heart-struck, and indeed enamored with the beauty of "War Horse.""
Culture Vulture
- Somewhat Recommended
"...However, I am not the first critic to note that older audiences may find it overly sentimental. A pity really. The sophistication of the stagecraft would compliment much more sophisticated material. If you have the good fortune to have a child in tow be sure to bring the Kleenex; you can still enjoy the theater even if it does not grab you in the same way."
Total Theater
- Recommended
"...With its epic story, dazzling puppetry, gifted cast and impeccable production values, War Horse is without question one of the great theatrical events of our time."
The Stage Struck Review
- Recommended
"...If you have any interest in or love for the theater as an art form, this is a play which must be seen."
LifeInLA
- Recommended
"...Keep youngsters at bay and make your outing to War Horse an adult appreciation of imagination and artistry."
Daily Bruin
- Recommended
"...Yet, the far-reaching themes of courage, dedication and most importantly, hope, remain ever clear despite this light layer of confusing haze. Through these themes, "War Horse" proves to be a story relatable to many people, making the show not only enjoyable but also thoroughly memorable."
Cinesnatch
- Somewhat Recommended
"...A beautiful accomplishment, worthy of better material."
Broadway World
- Recommended
"...What makes this piece such an amazing piece of theatre, however, which can not be replicated in a novel or on a movie screen, is the incredible work of the Handspring Puppet Company, which brings Joey and the other horses to life in a way that is truly remarkable to witness and emotional to endure."
