Rae Smith and Handspring Puppet Company have won the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design for their work on the National Theatre production of War Horse. Smith is credited as the designer for the production, while Handspring produced the phenomenal puppets that left audiences entirely convinced of the animals’ characters and lives.
Smith and Handspring won a hotly contested category which also featured the dark and seedy bunker of Macbeth (Anthony Ward and Lorna Heavey), the brightly coloured world of Hairspray (David Rockwell) and the enchanted fantasy lands of The Lord Of The Rings (Rob Howell).
The team of Smith and Handspring came together to breath life into the rural village and World War I landscape of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse. In doing so they created life-sized horses worked by a team of actor/puppeteers that could be ridden by actors, huge stage-traversing tanks, shadow puppetry of warfare and a quirky, excitable goose whose cameo appearances almost stole the show. Their ingenuity is one of the reasons the autumn family drama was so successful and will go on to follow in the footsteps of His Dark Materials and Coram Boy by being revived for a second successive season later this year.
Smith is a regular collaborator at the National, having worked on productions including Saint Joan, The Seafarer, Pillars Of The Community and Theatre Of Blood. An international artist, she has also worked with Boston Rep, Opera du Rhin, the Royal Opera House, Aldeburgh, American Rep Theatre and across the West End.
South African company Handspring was formed by four graduates of Michaelis School of Fine Art in 1981. Originally a children’s company touring schools in South Africa, Botswana, Swaziland and Namibia, it presented its first adult production in 1985 and has since built an international reputation.
The Laurence Olivier Award for Best Set Design was presented by Julian Ovenden who will soon be seen starring opposite Ruthie Henshall in the Theatre Royal Haymarket’s production of new musical Marguerite.
MA
