Week #7 : 'Equus' by Peter Shaffer

The 1973 play Equus by Peter Shaffer deals with the tragic tale about a teenage boy, Alan Strang, who blinds six horses in a quest for sexual freedom from his families constraints on his sexuality.


As the play develops, the other main character, psychiatrist Martin Dysart, tries to unfold what has happened that could forge an irreversible terrible decision in a young boy. As Dysart delves further into Strang's imaginary world, his own life is gradually exposed as stagnant and passionless. As the audience continues to travel further into Equus, we hear the disturbing and terrifying tale of Alan Strang, who, because his religious mother and his hypocrite father, makes his own religion based on horses, the bible and sexual deviation. 
Dysart, is not able to imagine anything like Strange has lived through in his young life as has completely lost his passion for his wife and who walks around carrying an unfulfilled dream about love and devotion.  Despite the horrific cruelty the Strang has delivered to the horses in blinding them, Dysart has an epiphany that this megalomaniac behaviour might just lead to a fulfilling life for some. 

Dysart - "A child is born into a world of phenomena all equal in their power to enslave.  it sniffs - it sucks - it strokes its eyes over the whole uncomfortable range.  Suddenly one strikes.  Why? Moments snap together like magnets, forging a chain of shackles.  Why?  I can trace them.  I can even, with time, pull them apart again.  But why at the start they were ever magnetised at all - just those particular moments of experience and no others - I don't know.  And nor does anyone else.  Yet if I don't know - if I can never know that - then what am I doing here?  I don't mean clinically doing or socially doing - I mean fundamentally!  These questions, these Whys, are fundamental - yet they have no place in a consulting room.  So then, do I?...  This is the feeling more and more with me.  No Place.  Displacement....."

 However Dysart's views have changed in the course of trying to treat Strang, he ends up envying this ability to create and believe in a religion with so much passion and devotion.  But all of this is to no avail as Dysart must confirm to the expectatins of his position as psychiatrist and treat Strang and reintroduce him into the community and an acceptable path that confirms to societal structures. 

Usually performed in a minimalist way, four benches are utilised in varying ways in the stage - As the pens for the hoses and seats for Dysart's office. However mainly in a square configuration within a round stage. This allows the audience to create their own opinions based on the script and performances, rather than the ideas represented though religion and the horses.  The cast sit on the stage and enter the stage area within the square when they are required or when the lines diverge and respond with the flashbacks being observed within the plot - Thus creating a philosophical idea within the themes of societal constraints (trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.)
As per the minimalist set, the horses are always stylised and not to be depicted as real animals.  They are used to represent the god-like symbolic meaning for Strang, his religion and the only way that he can express his sexual desires.  Peter Shaffer clearly explains in the notes at the start of the script explaining how the staging and the representation of the horses.  He explains that at no times should the horses be seen as a literal animal.  never should they crouch on all fours.  They must always stand upright and the effect of the horse needs to be mimetic thorugh the use of the actors head, arms, legs, knees and neck.  Pride should be taken by the actors to carefully place the stylised headpiece in front of the audience with precise timing.

Daniel Radcliffe (oh, dear young - or should I now say 'old' Harry Potter) performed in Equus for London............. To shocking reviews.... I mean, how dare Radcliffe get his kit off on stage (yup, 'Strang' gets COMPLETELY naked on stage to show his devotion to his horses), when he still is contracted with the Harry Potter films..... I applaud him for this decision. As an adult playing a teenage role in the films he chose the perfect moment to extend his repertoire and force his name into the spotlight within theatre.  Opening in early 2007 at the Gielguld Theatre in London, and then making a move to the American Broadway stage in 2008, the director Thea Sharrock chose well.  Her minimalist design captivated audiences along with Radcliffe's portrayal of Alan Strang.  The New York Times reported "Mr. Radcliffe has an air of heightened ordinariness, of the everyday lad who snags your attention with an extra, possibly dangerous gleam of intensity. That extra dimension has always been concentrated in Mr. Radcliffe’s Alsatian-blue gaze, very handy for glaring down otherworldly ghouls if you’re Harry Potter. Or if you’re Alan Strang, for blocking and enticing frightened grown-ups who both do and do not want to understand why you act as you do."

But I digress...

Shaffer has used four key elements within the play script of Equus.  The key elements to bring together this tale of brutality and religion are:

Forms of Greek Tragedy as used in the symbolic nature of the horses and the tragic-hero of Alan Strang... Or is is Martin Dysart?  They both gain epiphanies into their lives (although Dysart more than Strang.)  The horses are described as creating a chorus of noises and distortion that Strang furthers his religion and god-like facination on 'Nugget', the main horse at the stables - His Equus - his God, his Dyonisus.

Using horses as a central image and as a metaphor of crisis.  The horses move in unison and create choral sounds that worsen and relinquish as Strang's emotions fluctuate throughout the course of the plot.

The central ideas of religion and ritual to forge a meaning in ones life.  Strang uses the horses to further his ideas of religion that have been taught by his mother and grown distain with his father.  When Strang cannot perform sexually for Jill, he takes his anger out on the horses and blinds them because he has shamed himself in front of his god and religion.

And finally that the ideas of society and societal norms are the determiners of 'normal and abnormal behaviour'.  Both Strang and Dysart have set determiners on how and why society determine normal behaviour.  Strang knos he doesn't conform to society, so he doesn't even bother trying (I'm not sure he ever tried) and Dysart knows that to hold onto his position as a psychiatrist he must conform to society and turn out patients to what society has determined they should be after treatment - But does he agree with this??


Mockingbird Theatre in Melbourne, Australia just finished a sell out season of Equus at The Brunswick Mechanics Institute Performing Arts Centre.  Aparently it was a brilliant production for a company that is speedily emerging into the Australian arts scene.  I wish I had been able to see it.

Next Week: 'The Dumb Waiter' by Harold Pinter