The Horse and His Boy: A Review on a Trumpets production

I got to watch The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe the musical back in the 90's when the church I attended to sponsored one show. As much as I like to see Narnia came to life, I didn't like the musical aspect of it. Until Disney/Walden Media made a movie that surpassed my expectations.

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There were many adaptations besides Trumpets and the movies. There were also the BBC TV mini-series. Sadly,the movies and the mini-series didn't continue after few book adaptations.

In contemporary literature, CS Lewis wrote a series of books called the Chronicles of Narnia in which he can tell children a fantasy story which paralleled Christian Gospels as metaphors. Just like his fellow contemporary author and friend, JRR Tolkien; who pioneered the fantasy genre that we patterned for role-playing games, Lewis pioneered a fantasy stories with theological substance.

The Chronicles of Narnia is one of two of Lewis' fictional works. The other is the Space Trilogy which is a Christian science fiction series.

The Horse and His Boy is the fifth book in the Narnia Chronicles. It was set in one of the kingdoms outside Narnia where an orphan boy meet a talking horse  and began a journey to Narnia.

Like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Horse and His Boy also has theological insights. The orphan boy Shasta also has biblical parallelisms. In a way, he can be compared to Moses and Jesus who came out of captivity and returns in a triumphant manner.

Just like in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe; the lion Aslan represents the personification of Jesus Christ. He is full of wisdom and somehow shows that he has almost omnipresent abilities. You may wondering, why used a lion to represent a messiah. Jesus himself was described the Lion of Judah and the name Aslan is actually Turkish for lion.

Lewis never wrote the chronicles in chronological order. Although it's the fifth book, The Horse and His Boy is next to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It shows the Pevensie children as grownup kings and queens of Narnia. In a manner of theological perspective, it shows the true nature of the human race as heirs of the Kingdom of God.

The adaption was written by Narnia expert Luna Grino-Inocian, who also did The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. According to her, it is not her favorite Narnia book but it shows the continuity during the Golden Age of The Kings and Queens of Narnia which is why they didn't follow the numerical order of the books. 

Unlike the previous production, it is less musical like it is more like a straight play with few songs. According to director Jaime Del Mundo, Trumpets president only agreed to it only after adding some songs.

The set and the stage is wonderfully designed by Mio Infante who really make the audience return to Narnia and the neighboring kingdoms. What's a Narnia story without an epic battle. I enjoyed the battle scenes because they used traditional Asian shadow puppetry in some scenes besides the battle and used choreographed battles similar to Kalaripayattu, an Indian swordsmanship.

I am also impressed with Asian ventriloquism with the animal characters. What they did is not an easy task,  For the story itself, it is something Filipinos can relate. You may find situations similar to a TV prime time drama series. It just shows that CS Lewis first wrote about it.''

Overall, it succeeded my expectations and I find it better than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. If there won't be any succeeding Narnia movie, then this is the next best thing. For more theater production reviews, follow this blog and like L.E.N.S. blogs on Facebook. The Horse and His Boy stages at Meralco theater on weekends.