Talk To Me From Wnyc

One of the most powerful aspects of “War Horse,” which opened at Lincoln Center on April 14, is, of course, the astonishing puppets. Minutes into this riveting tale of a boy and his horse against the background of World War I (see our feature here), the audience has completely invested the “horses” with life. This is just what the co-founders of the Handspring Puppet Company, Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler, who developed the production with Great Britain’s National Theatre, intended. However, at a lecture given in The New School’s Tishman Auditorium the night before the opening--the event was co-sponsored by The Vera List Center for Art and Politics and the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center--puppeteers pulled back the curtain during a lively panel discussion and demonstration. Joined by South African-born poet Yvette Christianse and Obie Award-winning puppeteer Dan Hurlin, Kohler and Jones talked about the origins of their company in apartheid South Africa; the use of puppetry as vehicle of advocacy; its place