In a rehearsal room deep beneath Lincoln Center, a horse is dying. Over and over. Each time it's an agonizing collapse, starting with the hind legs buckling and thrashing, the torso then collapsing with a thud and the head struggling against gravity. As it suffers multiple agonies, students watch intently. “The tension point is his neck,” their teacher points out calmly. Not to worry, equine lovers: While intensely lifelike, the dying animal is made of cane and plywood.
在林肯中心地下深處彩排室，一匹馬正瀕臨死亡。一遍遍，每回都是痛苦的倒下，先是後腿彎屈、激烈扭動，接著軀幹砰地一聲倒地，頭掙扎著死命往上揚。當馬正遭到多重痛苦時，學生專心凝視。他們的老師則平靜指出：「張力點在脖子上。」別擔心，馬迷們：雖然極度逼真，這隻垂死動物是用藤條和合板做的。
It is among nine life-sized puppets and their controllers that are being put through their paces to prepare for the U.S. premiere of “War Horse,” a play about horses sent to the battlefields during World War I that has become a smash hit in London. Toby Sedgwick, the director of movement and horse sequences, instructs the puppeteers on the fine points of how to express life-and death-in their inanimate animals. “You want to slowly tilt to one side,” he says to two muscular men struggling to coordinate a death scene inside one puppet's 77-pound shell. “Use your arm as leverage.”
9個實物大小的木偶及其操控者正在接受訓練，準備《戰馬》在美國首次公演，這齣戲講第一次世界大戰期間被送到戰場上的馬，在倫敦演出時極為轟動。負責馬連續動作的塞奇威克正指導木偶演出人，如何在細微處表達無生命動物的生與死。「你要慢慢向一側傾斜。」他向正在77磅重木偶軀殼內努力調控一個死亡場景的2名肌肉男說：「用你們的臂膀當槓桿。」
Fifteen performers manipulate the show's puppets, slipping inside the beast and pushing internal levers that regulate everything from the horse's knees to its ear wiggles. They also add the horses' sound effects - the whinnying and snorting. “You three are the souls of the horse,” Sedgwick says to the performers. Based on a novel by Michael Morpurgo, “War Horse”opened to ecstatic reviews in October 2007 at London's National Theatre and two years later moved to the New London Theatre in the West End, where it's still running.
15個操縱木偶的表演者，溜進這些馬的軀殼內，推動內部槓桿以調控一切動作，從馬的膝蓋到耳朵扭動不等。他們還增加馬的音效，包括輕聲嘶鳴和噴氣。 塞奇威克告訴表演者：「你們3個是馬的靈魂。」《戰馬》以莫波格的小說為經緯， 2007年10月在倫敦國家劇院首演時獲得狂熱回響，2年後再移師西區新倫敦劇院公演至今。
When director Marianne Elliott was pitched the idea of creating a theater piece based on a children's book about cavalry horses in World War I, she responded, “It sounds like absolute madness. Yes, I'd love to do it.” Along with co-director Tom Morris and the artists of South Africa's Handspring Puppet Company, Elliott guided War Horse to a widely hailed London debut, and the creators are now hard at work bringing the show's lead character, a beloved horse named Joey, to life for the American premiere of War Horse at Lincoln Center Theater beginning March 15.
當有人建議導演瑪麗安．艾利特，以一本有關一戰騎兵用馬的童書為本，創作一齣戲劇演出時，她回答說：「聽起來瘋狂透頂。但沒錯，我很想做。」她和共同導演莫里斯，以及南非漢斯普林木偶公司的藝術指導，共同導演《戰馬》在倫敦首演，普受好評。該劇創作者現正努力把這場戲的主角，一匹叫喬伊備受愛戴的馬，栩栩如生地引進美國林肯中心劇院 3月15日開始的首演。
Although the puppeteers are visible on stage, the choreography and attention to realistic movements is so intense that the human manipulators seem to disappear over time, reminiscent of “Avenue Q.” The horses neigh and nuzzle, gallop and die. The American production is enjoying a whole new set of puppets re-engineered by the original creators, Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler of the Handspring Puppet Company, which was founded in South Africa in 1981. “They're lighter, stronger, more elegant mechanically than the originals,” says Jones. “The puppeteers who tested them in London before they came over here to New York were, I think, quite jealous.”
雖然舞台上可以看見木偶師，但編排和逼真的動作吸引強烈的注意力，使人的操縱似乎無形中消失了，令人聯想到劇作《可愛大街》。馬兒嘶鳴、用鼻子摩擦，奔馳和死亡。美國這次演出有一套全新的木偶，由1981年於南非成立的原創者漢斯普林木偶公司的瓊斯和科勒重新打造。瓊斯說：「在機械上，他們比原件更輕、更強、更優雅。到紐約這裡之前曾試過這些木偶的人想必很眼紅。」
Jones says the spirit of the show is to explore the interrelationship between humans and animals, and to present horses as they really are, not as caricatures. To find the right people to play the horses, auditions were open to all kinds of performers - dancers, actors, puppeteers. Each puppeteer must master three-person horses - two puppeteers inside the body and one leading the head - as well as two-person horses and smaller, one-person horses. The work is so intense that physical therapists regularly check on the cast.
瓊斯說，這個劇作的精神在探討人類和動物之間的互動關係，並且呈現馬的真實面貌，而不只是素描。為了找到合適的人扮演馬，面試時對各類型表演者，包括舞蹈家、演員和木偶師開放。每個木偶表演者要能掌握3人扮的馬，其中2人在馬身體內部，一個帶頭；另外還有2人馬和更小的1人馬。這項演出是如此劇烈，物理治療師必須定期檢查演員。
Adapted from the novel by Michael Morpurgo, War Horse is a wonderful production that tells the moving story of a boy going to war to find his missing horse. At the outbreak of World War One, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. He's soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.
《戰馬》改編自莫波格小說，是齣很棒的劇作，講一個男孩為了找失的戰馬，而赴戰場的感人故事。一戰爆發後，小艾伯特心愛的馬喬伊被賣給騎兵並運到法國。他很快陷入敵人炮火中，命運使他有非常奇特的經歷，在雙方陣營服役後，最後發現獨自被留在無人地帶。小艾伯特忘不了喬伊，他年紀太小不能從軍，但他終於展開危險的任務，找到他並帶他回家。
Photo one shows Basil Jones （L） and Adrian Kohler, producers with the National Theatre of Great Britain's “War Horse,” posing with one of the production's life-size puppets at Lincoln Center in New York. Photo two shows Zach Villa, a puppeteer with the production of the National Theatre, demonstrating movements of puppet characters at Lincoln Center.
圖1為英國國家劇院《戰馬》製作人瓊斯（左）和科勒在紐約林肯中心和實物大小的馬木偶合照。圖2則為國家劇院木偶師維拉在林肯中心示範木偶的動作。（美聯社）
Ocean Bottom Seismometer，OBS海底地震儀
台灣位處歐亞板塊交界帶，一如日本東北這次規模9.0的強震，影響台灣安全的地震有極高比率發生在海域，為能更清楚掌握和測量海底地震，國內研發出海底地震儀（Ocean Bottom Seismometer, OBS）「庭園鳥（Yardbird）」，使地震學家能在海底接收地震資料、擴大觀測範圍。
中央研究院地球科學研究所研究員郭本垣指出，台灣本島地震測站密布，總數多達260站以上，測量密度和質量可以說「獨步全球」。但在台灣周邊海域的地震觀測點，卻只有陸地的1/10，地震學家因此無法窺測同樣複雜、又會影響台灣居住安全的外海地層構造。
中山大學海下技術研究所副教授王兆璋說，目前只有歐美和日本有成熟的海底地震儀技術。台灣能技術自主，不只節省研究成本、刺激國內海洋工程產業發展，更不必再因機器須送國外維修，錯失出海測量的時機。除了增加海底地震儀可接收的震波頻寬，也正嘗試在海底地震儀裝上數位相機鏡頭和動量偵測器。未來這套技術更可應用到偵測海底及陸上土石流，發展成土石流預警系統。
Net-Zero Energy Lab 淨零耗能實驗室
位於洛磯山麓全美規模最大的淨零耗能實驗室（或稱淨零能耗，Net-Zero Energy Lab）總面積20439平方公尺。6個月前，美國全國再生能源實驗室（National Renewable Energy Lab）800名工程師和職工進駐這棟耗資 6400萬美元的建築物，希望達到年淨零耗能的標準。
商業建築每年平均用掉美國全國能耗的18%，許多建築物建造時幾乎全沒考慮節能問題。全國再生能源實驗室隸屬能源部，不靠先進科技達成目的，這裡不用巨大昂貴的太陽能板來遮掩傳統設計的缺點，而是重新思考每個細節。這種零耗能既不複雜也不貴，又很實用，是活生生的實驗室。
要使這棟建築物邁向24小時內淨零耗能的目標，要從照明問題下手。設計師降低工作小隔間的隔牆高度，以提高自然光線洩入量及通風效果。圓形結構鋼柱來自建造於舊能源經濟時代但從未使用的914公尺長天然氣輸送管。大廳的木質裝飾以死於樹皮蟲害的黑松製成。再生能源實驗室的「研究支援設施」大樓則如一面鏡子或一塊海綿，包括可以使光線折射，再進入內部辦公空間的百葉窗，及可留住並貯存輻射熱的巨大地下第二層水泥迷宮。