A new version of Peter Shaffer’s disturbing play at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Guildford brilliantly uses movement to explore homoerotic themes, says Richard Davies...
OUR VERDICT
Equus is a joint production by the English Touring Theatre and Theatre Royal Stratford East of Peter Shaffer’s classic 1973 play. Director Ned Bennett, who had a major hit last year with Octaroon, has created a new psychological interpretation that reveals hidden homoerotic themes in this highly disturbing drama.
For anyone not familiar with the play, Equus is essentially a psychological “Whydunnit”. Alan Strang, a young stablehand, has been referred by a Magistrate for psychiatric assessment, after being found guilty of blinding six horses with a metal spike. Dysart, a psychiatrist, sets out to understand what could make him commit such an appalling crime.
At first, Strang appears withdrawn, communicating only by chanting advertising jingles. Dysart patiently probes, explores and finally penetrates Strang’s psychological defences, discovering the boy’s bizarrely fetishized erotic imagining of a horse God, Equus. We learn that Strang’s obsession has its roots in a childhood encounter on a beach with a dashing male horse rider, and a later argument between his parents, which resulted in a grisly poster of Christ on the way to Calvary being replaced with a picture of a horse’s head.
By finding work as a stablehand, Strang has the opportunity to escape his repressed, suburban family and devote himself to his equine worship. As Dysart unravels the story, the intensity of Strang’s ecstatic devotions causes him to question his own life’s purpose.
By far the most impressive thing about this production is the work by ‘Movement Director’ Shelley Maxwell to turn six members of the cast into horses through movement alone. It is intensely homoerotic, psychological and at times exhilarating, reminding me of the first time I saw the puppetry of War Horse.
Ethan Kai, who played Alan Strang, clearly has a great career ahead of him. With its prolonged nude scenes, this is a highly challenging role for any actor and Kai’s performance was quite exceptional. The scenes with the equally talented Norah Lopez Holden, a more conventional ‘horse lover’ who takes a shine to Strang, were totally convincing and deeply touching. Robert Fitch and Syreeta Kuma both impressed as Alan’s parents Frank and Dora Strang, as did Ruth Lass as Magistrate Hesther Salomon.
Unfortunately, I found Zubin Varla to be less convincing as Martin Dysart. Perhaps because I’m too familiar with the Richard Burton screen version, so widely copied in other stage versions I have seen, Varla’s neurotic and shambolic Dysart for me lacked the gravitas in the role of narrator to do full justice to the tragic elements of this story. Perhaps I am being too much of a traditionalist.
Overall, this is an extremely impressive production and worth seeing for Shelley Maxwell’s movement work alone.
Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford
Dates: 7 May - 11 May
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