‘Equus’

Theatre Intime takes on Peter Shaffer’s unconventional mystery.

By: Stuart Duncan
   Equus burst onto the London stage in 1973 and soon moved to Broadway, where it won the 1974 Tony Award for best play. Based allegedly on a true story, the work, at least on the surface, centers on explosive encounters between 17-year-old Alan Strang and Martin Dysart, a middle-aged psychiatrist. The play is being presented at Theatre Intime on the Princeton University campus as part of an ambitious season.
   British playwright Peter Shaffer has structured the work as a mystery, but not in the conventional sense. Young Alan (played with honest intensity by Shawn Fennell) has blinded six horses with a spike at a stable where he had a part-time job as a groom. The sensitive magistrate, Hesther Salomon (Ashley Alexander, underplaying nicely), rather than listening to the blood cries of the community, assigns the case to Dysart (Jon Ryan), seeking an explanation. She sees Alan as a victim in pain and relies on psychiatry to relieve that pain.
   Alan’s parents, Frank and Dora (Billy Hepfinger and Julia Cain), blame each other, although Dora comes to believe that Alan’s act was caused "by the devil." And playwright Shaffer goes to considerable lengths not to allow us to dismiss the notion lightly. Meanwhile, the closer Dysart comes to understanding his patient’s motive, the more confused he is as to how to respond to the mental world that the lad has created. At the end he is faced with two unattractive alternatives — leaving Alan with his "worship," but clearly in psychic pain, or "curing" him at the expense of his passion.
   The Intime production is solid and workmanlike, and misses much of the underlying threads that make the piece so challenging. Equus has become a favorite of college theater groups, but less so with community theaters, undoubtedly because it involves intricate, delicate scenes including some vulgar language and nudity plus suggestions of abnormal sexual behavior. The best stagings face the challenges head on, but often, as in this case, scenes are toned down and compromised, the nudity avoided and Shaffer’s voice therefore muted.
   In the end we may learn why Alan blinded the horses, but we may not care very much. A campus production 18 years ago remains in my memory as the finest college show I ever saw, and by chance the director of that production, on campus for the year as a fellow with the politics department, was at opening night. On opening night in 1988 dozens of undergraduates milled around outside, searching for tickets. Even with a week of performances added, all sellouts, many were disappointed.
   There were 16 at the opening of this staging. Obviously priorities have changed.
Equus continues at Hamilton Murray Theater, Princeton University, through Oct. 21. Performances: Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 2, 8 p.m. Tickets cost $12, $10 seniors/faculty/students. For information, call (609) 258-1742. On the Web: www.theatreintime.org