Review: Equus, Durham Assembly Rooms

THIS Theatre Company’s Equus, freed from the shackles of tabloid fascination with certain wizard’s appendage, returned Shaffer’s play to its dark heart and told the story of the young man who has his certainties questioned by a sterile society.

When psychiatrist Martin Dysart is referred Alan Strang, a troubled adolescent who has blinded five horses at the stable where he worked as a Saturday boy, little could he imagine that his own world view would be questioned and foundations and ethics upon which he works and ‘cures’ are shaken to their core. As Alan recounts the development of his obsession with horses, Dysart encounters the void in his own life where Strang has placed Equus as a god to whom he pays homage and who sees all. With other revelations from Strang’s parents Dysart finds his way into Alan’s mind and the events of the night in question culminating in vivid final scene where Dysart’s Porfiry elicits a confession out of his young Raskolnikov. Yet even this does not allow Dysart rest as he continues to see the emptiness of his, and now the ‘cured’ Alan’s, life without the vitality of higher connection.

The play was helped by a strong cast who on the whole gave excellent performances. The leads, Dysart and Strang, were convincing and showed great stamina in characterisation with their being on stage for two hours before their energetic climax. By way of criticism, Kate Hunter’s magistrate Hester Salomon, who brings Dysart the case, felt one dimensional and more possibly could have been made of the hinted at sexual tension between the two. However, it was a show packed with pathos filled moments: Dysart’s speech in which talks of his sacrificial dream was well pitched and had echoes of Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis whilst Simon Radford, excelling as Strang’s Bolshevik father, gave the piece some fine comedy in the scene when Alan is found in the local cinema watching snuff films.

Plaudits must go to Beth Campbell-Wright’s design team who’s horse heads, evoking memories of Tom Morris’ War Horse, were both stunningly simple and beautiful and to some clever choreography with the movement of imagined horse seeming to change with Alan’s developing relationship with them. Dan Jefferies’ sound design also added to the overall aesthetic with its interesting fusing of horse sounds and strings whilst a good lighting design made up for the over enthusiastic use of the smoke machine.

THIS’s Equus, ably directed by Bobbi Nicholson and Gregory Carter, showed the play without the hype and pitched perfectly the relationship between their two leads. Yet the play felt that the other relationships were a little under done and could have done with more investiture in these supporting roles. This said Equus was a polished and provoking evening’s entertainment and it will be interesting to see how Dundee Rep approach this troublesome text in the coming weeks.

Equus: ****
Image courtesy of Chantelle Clough.