» Review: Equus
There’s an unfair preconception surrounding this play, “the nudity is gratuitous” they say “the subject matter is unrealistic” they cry. Neither is true. Peter Shaffer’s play, based on real events, is in effect a detailed look of how a young man can ultimately perpetrate an unspeakable crime. The child, and eventually the young man, was clearly troubled. You could argue (rightly in my opinion) that his parents’ indifferent views (one almost Marxist, the other overtly religious) nurtured a need to hero-worship. Society is used to hero-worshipping celebrities; no-one would blink an eye if he went around in an Elvis jumpsuit. The problem stems from his infatuation with horses, a passion that overspills into an unhealthy relationship with his charges with slight overtones of sado masochism. This is ultimately a love story; the nudity is justified and apt, dealt with intelligent lighting and staging which gave it an air of intensity and passion. And passion is a strong theme. A large part of the story focuses on the psychiatrist’s conflict between ‘healing’ the young man’s crime of passion that was at least acted upon and the psychiatrist’s own passions that remain incomplete, culturally and matrimonially.
London Classic Theatre produced a stunning piece of work. The set design is almost gladiatorial, the scene battles played in a ring of seating surrounded by the unused cast watching as both audience and actor. The material is dark but thought-provoking and performed delicately, with precision and with utmost sensitivity. A triumph.
Connaught Theatre, Worthing, 29 September
Rating: 
Lee Stevens
