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Equus (play)

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Cover of 1993 Longman edition of Equus.

Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological fascination with horses.[1]

Shaffer was inspired to write Equus when he heard of a crime involving a teenage boy's apparently senseless injury to horses. He set out to construct a fictional account of what might have caused the incident, without knowing any of the details of the crime. The play is essentially a detective story, with the psychiatrist trying to understand the cause of the boy's actions while wrestling with his own sense of purpose.

Plot summary

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The play is set in the office of psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Dysart [2]. It begins with a monologue from Dysart in which he outlines that the case of seventeen-year old Alan Strang is among the strangest with which he has ever dealt. He also divulges feelings that his occupation is not all that he wishes it would be. He sees so many troubled young people and there is a never-ending supply of them for him to "adjust". A court official visits Dysart as she believes he has the skills in his profession to help Alan come to terms with a violent act he perpretrated. Alan had, seemingly inexplicably, blinded six horses at a stable in which he worked.

To begin with, Dysart has a great deal of difficulty making any kind of headway with Alan who responds to any kind of questioning by singing advertising slogans. Slowly, Dysart makes contact with Alan by playing a kind of game where each of them asks a question which must be answered honestly. He finds out that from an early age Alan has been receiving conflicting viewpoints on religion from his parents. Dora Strang, a devout Catholic and the mother of Alan, read to him daily from the Bible. This antagonizes Alan's atheist father, Frank Strang, who, concerned that Alan took far too much interest in the more violent aspects of the Bible, specifically the crucifixion of Christ,takes out his frustration by destroying a picture of the crucifixion that Alan has at the foot of his bed. He replaced the picture with one of a horse.

In conversation with Dysart, Frank reveals that one night he saw Alan kneeling in front of the picture of the horse chanting a made-up genealogy of horses parodying that of Christ in the Bible. The list of names ends with "Equus." Whilst kneeling, Alan takes a coat hanger and flagellates. Through further questioning of Alan, it is revealed that he made up for his lack of a focus for his worship by deifying horses. Alan believes that the spirit of Equus resides in all horses.

Alan has a job working in a shop selling electrical goods which is where he met Jill Mason who visits the shop wanting blades for horse-clippers. Alan was instantly interested when he discovers that Jill has such close contact with horses. Jill suggests that Alan work for her father at their stables and Alan agrees.

Alan is held by Jill's father to be a model worker, since he keeps the stables immaculately clean and grooms the horses, including one named "Nugget." Through Dysart's questioning, it becomes clear that Alan is erotically fixated on Nugget and secretly takes him for midnight rides. Alan rides him bareback and naked enjoying the feeling of the power of the animal and the smell of the sweat.

One day, Jill asks Alan to take her to a pornographic theater. While there, they run into Frank. They all leave embarrassed after giving weak excuses for their presence in the theater. Alan walks Jill home but Jill suggests that they go to the stables for sex. Alan is very nervous in the stable as he hears the horses moving around. He is frustrated that his nervousness makes him unable to get an erection. He threatens Jill with a hoof pick and makes her leave the stable. When she is gone he blames the horses and the spirit of Equus for his embarrassment and punishes the six horses by blinding them for seeing his shame.

The play concludes with Dysart, once again, delivering a monologue that he can make Alan's pain go away and that he can ensure that he's not a danger. But Dysart is saddened that the effect of his treatment will remove Alan's passion for horses, severing these extremely intense sexual and religious connections. Dysart also reflects upon his life noticing that it has not yielded any such comparable passion and that he has the bit in his mouth and is the priest of the insidious god, normal.

Original productions

The play was originally staged at the Royal National Theatre at the Old Vic in London in 1973. It was directed by John Dexter and starred Alec McCowen as psychiatrist Martin Dysart and Peter Firth as Alan Strang, the young patient. It was subsequently presented on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre with Anthony Hopkins and Peter Firth.

Later, Tom Hulce played the role of Alan Strang, and Anthony Perkins replaced Hopkins as Martin Dysart. Perkins was briefly replaced by Richard Burton for the star's return to Broadway for a limited run. Perkins resumed the part when Burton's run ended. The play received a Tony Award for best play in 1975.

Equus was acclaimed not only for its dramatic craftmanship and the performances by the stars, but also for its brilliantly original staging. The horses were portrayed by actors in brown track suits, wearing a wire abstraction of a horse's head. The entire cast, including the actors playing the horses, remained seated on stage for the play's duration, watching the action along with the audience. Part of the audience was seated on the stage as well, in bleachers that looked out into the auditorium, creating the effect that the spectators surrounded the action.

Film adaptation

Main article: Equus (film)

Shaffer adapted the play for a 1977 film starring Richard Burton, Peter Firth, Eileen Atkins, Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright, and Jenny Agutter, directed by Sidney Lumet.

Revivals

Massachusetts' Berkshire Theatre Festival revived Equus in the Summer of 2005, staged by Scott Schwartz, with Victor Slezak as Dysart and Randy Harrison as Strang. (Roberta Maxwell, who originated the role of Jill, in the original 1970s Broadway production played a judge in this revival.

George Takei played Dysart in a 2006 revival, featuring an Asian Pacific cast, done at East West Players in Los Angeles, California.

Equus was revived in 2007 in London's West End, with Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe in the leading roles, and is currently playing. This production is directed by Thea Sharrock, and opened in February 2007 at the Gielgud Theatre. The production attracted a lot of press attention, as Radcliffe and Griffiths appear in the Harry Potter film franchise. In particular the casting of seventeen year-old Radcliffe caused some controversy, since the role of Alan Strang required him to appear naked on stage.[1] However, Radcliffe insisted it is right that he plays the character the same way Peter Firth did more than 1,000 times.

  • In the Simpsons episode The Seven-Beer Snitch, a theatre marquee in Shelbyville advertises "Sideshow Mel in Equus". Recently, it was also in another episode, Springfield Up, where Homer decides as one of his new jobs to make Play-doh scenes which shows a scene from Equus. Interestingly, this episode originally aired on the same weekend the 2007 revival premiered in London.
  • In the popular book, (later made a film adaption starring James McAvoy) 'Starter for Ten' by David Nicholls, it is mentioned that Bristol University's Theatre club is putting on Equus that year.
  • Blonde Redhead's album Misery is a Butterfly includes a track entitled "Equus".
  • The Barnes & Barnes album Voobaha includes a song called "Clip Clop (Ode to Equus)".
  • Goran Visnjic got his start in acting when he was 12, with a part in a Croatian stage production of Equus. He received a standing ovation.
  • In the penultimate episode of Dead Ringers Series Seven, Equus was parodied in a Harry Potter sketch where Professor Snape tells the Hogwarts students that religious clothing is banned from the school. When Snape asks Harry Potter to take his veil off, Potter does so and he stands up in the nude. This is a possible reference to Daniel Radcliffe who plays Harry Potter and also appears in the play.

References

  1. ^ "Naked stage role for Potter star". BBC News. 2006. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
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