The English version of "War Horse" has won five Tony Awards. (Photo : Getty Images)
The Chinese version of the popular theater production, "War Horse," is back in the Beijing stage as it commenced its second tour in China mainland last Friday, the Global Times reported.
The production is known for the adorable character Joey, the show's life-sized puppet star.
The show first made headlines in the Chinese theater scene in 2015 when it was staged around the country for around 190 times. Its inaugural run ignited much fanfare in major regions including Beijing, Shanghai, Heilongjiang and Tianjin.
The creative production is a product of intensive collaboration between the national theaters of Britain and China.
"Joey is a puppet horse. So our first technological difficulty is how to make him come alive," Liu Xiaoyi, the "War Horse" director of puppeteering told the publication.
In order to master the needed skills for the production, Liu recounted that they had to live with horses for over a month, "observing their every move, feeding them, showering them, cleaning the stables... pretty much everything related to [the animals]."
As Liu enthused that "they want to create a real horse...alive and breathing," they also learned intimate knowledge about the animal--from its digestive to reproductive and nervous systems.
But for Liu Yang, one of the directors from the Chinese team, this collaborative projects is more than just the technical aspects, sharing that the Chinese version is "actually is an evolved version of the original."
"We've changed a few things to make the play better suit the tastes of Chinese people. We've also made our own improvements to the way the show is run," he shared.
A report from english.cri.cn noted that in order to "localize the script," British team director Alex Simms expressed worries in correctly translating the context of European culture depicted in the show.
"Working with the Chinese directing team and the translator, we managed to find Chinese idioms to replace English, French or German colloquialisms," Simms remarked.
