A Boy and His Steed, Far From Humane Society

It’s swoon time, ladies and gentlemen. Joey, the current marquee topper at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, is the kind of matinee idol New York hasn’t seen in ages. Tall, high-strung and handsome, with chestnut hair and eyes that catch the light, this strapping leading man is so charismatic you can imagine fans of both sexes lining up at the stage door with bouquets. Or maybe lumps of sugar and handfuls of hay.

One problem, though, with this fantasy. Once the curtain calls are done at “War Horse” — the imported British weepie that opened on Thursday night — Joey, its title character, ceases to exist until it’s showtime again. He is, it seems, one of those fabled stars of the stage who comes fully alive only when an audience is watching. Which, of course, makes him all the more captivating.

It takes a team of strong but sensitive puppeteers to bring Joey, a half-Thoroughbred who is sold into a World War I cavalry regiment, to life-size life. And it is how Joey is summoned into being, along with an assortment of other animals, that gives this production its ineffably theatrical magic. Steven Spielberg is working on a film version of “War Horse,” a 1982 novel for children by Michael Morpurgo. But nothing on screen could replicate the specific thrill of watching Joey take on substance and soul, out of disparate artificial parts, before our eyes.

This enchantment is the work of the designers Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, for the Handspring Puppet Company, based in Cape Town. And the spell cast has been strong enough to turn “War Horse,” which originated at the National Theater in London, into a runaway West End hit. A show that might otherwise have registered as only an agreeable children’s entertainment has been drawing repeat grown-up customers, who happily soak their handkerchiefs with wholesome tears.

Will Joey inspire the same success in New York? Of course we have heard about how otherwise stoical Britons fall into sobs at the sight of an imperiled steed or hound. But I’ve seen plenty of Americans get soppy over animals in ways they never would over mere human beings. I once attended a midnight show of Mr. Spielberg’s “Jaws,” where the audience was heartily enjoying the carnage wrought by a man-eating shark until a pooch was seen swimming in the ocean, and someone seated near me, expressing the feelings of multitudes, called out, “Oh, God, not the dog!”