Palm Beach Dramaworks has produced Peter Shaffer’s great
late 20th century play, Equus. It is one of the best productions of any PBD season,
and that’s a superlative I hesitate to use given what has preceded it. In every respect it is comparable to the
outstanding productions of the play which have been performed on Broadway or
the West End. Director J. Barry Lewis
has taken a metaphoric jig saw puzzle and put it together in a flowing, mesmerizing,
gut-wrenching production with actors at the very top of their games,
particularly the two leads, the skilled, seasoned Peter Simon Hilton as Martin
Dysart, a child psychiatrist, and an upcoming actor whose brilliant performance
portends an extraordinary acting future, Steven Maier as his patient, 17 year
old Alan Strang.
Passion vs. the cerebral, paganism vs. Christianity, normal
vs. abnormal, regret and hope: these are just a few of the layers of Equus.
The abhorrent act of blinding five horses with a metal spike brings all
these discordant themes together in an incomparable thought-provoking and
passionate production.
It is a long play, sometimes difficult to watch as there
is such self loathing on the part of the two major characters and as they
reveal more, they change the other, but for better or for worse? The sparse Greek staging strips the story
down to its bare essentials while the acting makes this so deeply affecting.
The play was written in the 1970s at a time when an anti-psychiatry
movement was underway. In fact, Shaffer
himself amusingly recalled that “in London Equus
caused a sensation because it displayed cruelty to horses; in New York,
because it allegedly displayed cruelty to psychiatrists.” Nonetheless, Shaffer’s ability to incorporate
all the major themes in the play into a psychological “why he did it,” has been
dealt with by the vision of the
production’s director, the astute J. Barry Lewis, a combination that makes this
great theatre. Some have even called the
play dated, but Lewis’ direction shapes the play so the ideas are still as
relevant in today’s world as it was nearly fifty years ago.
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Lewis is widely known as a collaborative director,
believing in his creative staff and encouraging the actors to make their own unique
contributions to the story the playwright has to tell, while remaining true to
the text. It shows in this production,
bringing out the best of the playwright, and the actors, the technical staff
facilitating its implementation. The
direction and the staging are like a skillfully solved Rubik's Cube. This is A Master Class in every respect.
Alan Strang is a disturbed inaccessible boy, the product
of a stern atheistic father who also leads a secret life and his very piously
religious wife who has fervently read passages from the Bible to her son all
his life. Are they to blame for Alan’s
aberrant behavior of savagely blinding those horses at the stable where he worked?
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The incident leads to Alan being admitted to a psychiatric
hospital in southern England and into the care of its head psychiatrist Martin
Dysart. Dysart at first objects to taking
on still another patient but his friend, Hesther Salomon, a sympathetic magistrate
who believes Alan would be better off in his care than in a prison, urges him
on. Increasingly, for reasons Shaffer
steadily feeds to the audience, the case fascinates Dysart. In fact, he becomes obsessively involved as his
unhappy personal life is revealed and he begins to doubt the consequences of
his life’s work, “curing” people of their aberrations (passions?).
Alan Strang is grippingly played by Steven Maier. This is not only his PBD debut but,
remarkably, his Regional Theatre debut.
He is an amazingly gifted actor who portrays this tormented boy with
complete abandon. Alan’s repressed
sexuality merges into a conflation of the agony of Christ with those of horses,
their having to endure bridles, reins, and stirrups. And yet, Alan is moved by “the way they give
themselves to us.” He replaces a
portrait of Christ in his room, one of him in chains on the Road to Calvary, with
a picture of a horse looking straight on, it’s enormous eyes the most salient
feature: “behold I give you Equus, my only begotten son.” Maier goes places you rarely see on a stage,
a place where inner demons dominate.
At first he can only chant advertising jingoes as he
enters therapy but as Dysart brings him closer in touch with the heinous act he
has committed, Maier’s performance builds and builds to an insistent crescendo.
It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the
same time, Alan literally climaxing while on his favorite horse, Nugget (Equus),
to which he is erotically attracted, the two becoming centauresque at that
moment.
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Peter Simon Hilton plays Dysart as a stern ringmaster, orchestrating,
pressing, questioning, and controlling what happens in the present and making
Alan play out what happened in the past. Frequently the past and the present are
happening concurrently, actors talking across one another. As more is revealed in the abreaction process,
Hilton effectively shows Dysart’s jealousy of his patient and his increasing
doubt in his own life’s work. Hilton
holds the audience in his grip delivering Shaffer’s simply brilliant analytical
monologues which conclude with such introspection. He comments on his concern about taking away
Alan’s “worship” of horses to Hesther:
“I only know it’s the core of his life. What else has he
got? Think about him. He can hardly read. He knows no physics or engineering to
make the world real for him. No paintings to show him how others have enjoyed
it. No music except television jingles. No history except tales from a desperate
mother. No friends. Not one kid to give him a joke, or make him know himself
more moderately. He’s a modern citizen for whom society doesn’t exist. He lives
one hour every three weeks -- howling
in a mist. And after the service kneels to a slave who stands over him
obviously and unthrowably his master. With my body I thee worship! …Many men
have less vital with their wives.”
Indeed, such as Dysart’s non-existent relationship with
his off stage wife. More and more of Dysart’s
thoughts go to his own deferred passion, Greek mythology, particularly the
dichotomy of Apollo and Dionysus, and thoughts of retiring to Greece (but with
whom, not with a wife who fails to appreciate the mythology, or him). Frequently Dysart addresses the audience
directly, Hilton staring into our faces, drawing us yet further into the heart
of the play.
Dysart is one of the most conflicted cerebral characters
in a 20th century play which Peter Simon Hilton conveys effortlessly,
leaving us all to wonder, have we done what our hearts dictated or has society
merely set us “on a metal scooter and
sen[t]…puttering off into the concrete world?”
Have we made a difference? Are we
condemned too to wear a metaphoric horse’s bit?
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The major supporting roles are all played by experienced
PBD actors. Julie Rowe as Dora Strang,
Alan’s semi-hysterical mother, candidly displays the emotions of a loving parent,
but is understandably bewildered and horrified by her son’s act, particularly
because of her belief in the religious education she provided. Her husband, Frank, is played by John Leonard
Thompson, darkly, uncomfortably -- being
such a private person now thrown into the light of the courts and the
institutional process of treating his son, their only child, of whom he’s been
critical all his life, (“son of a printer and you never open a book!”). His work ethic collides with his urge to visit
adult films. Thompson shows a man racked
by guilt and self defensiveness.
Dysart’s friend, and magistrate, Hesther Salomon, is
compassionately played by Anne-Marie Cusson, she being the only sounding board
for Dysart other than the audience itself. Cusson is stalwart in bolstering him up at
those very difficult times when he is expressing his greatest doubts, both as a
man and a doctor. Her sensitive portrayal is deeply touching, especially when
she expresses the constant reminder to him and us that “children before adults”
must be humanity's mantra if we are to remain a civilized world.
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Alan ends up working with the horses at a local stable
thanks to a job offer from Jill Mason, skillfully played with a sexual free
spirit and sangfroid by Mallory Newbrough, characteristics of the “new age” of
the early 1970’s. Her playful and persistent
interest in Alan ultimately leads to an unsatisfactory sexual incident in the stables,
which causes Alan’s destructive anguish to surface, melding his shame and fear
and derangement into an unfathomable crime.
Harry Dalton, the owner of the stable, is played by the
accomplished Steve Carroll and the nurse who works for Dysart is professionally
played by Meredith Bartmon.
Not enough accolades can be directed to the actors
playing the horses. Sounds silly, I
know, yet led by head horse, “Nugget” majestically as well as muscularly played
by Domenic Servidio (he also plays “The Horseman,” a man who takes Alan for a
ride on a horse at a beach as a youngster), are the others skillfully and
mesmerizingly played by Austin Carroll, Nicholas Lovalvo, Robert Richards, Jr.,
and Frank Vomero.
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Talk about method acting, each of the horsemen, as well
as Maier (Alan) spent time at a local stable – in fact Servidio went to a dude
ranch for a long weekend – to have a better understanding of a horse’s
movement, particularly in a stable. They
discovered horses’ ticks, with their hoofs, their reactionary movements, their
ubiquitous eyes. I truly believe this
enhanced the performance, not to mention certain choreographed moments when the
horses provide a ghoulish background for some of the action “in the ring.”
And, indeed, the scenic design by PBD veteran Anne
Mundell borrows both from the prize fighting ring and the Greek theatre. The play involves constant confrontation,
between characters and with the inner self, so the stripped down representation
of a boxing ring is a visual source for these pugilistic encounters. And as in Greek theatre of classical times,
it’s a simple space to tell a story, with minimal props, most of which are pantomimed,
except for the horses’ heads which are in keeping with the masks worn in Greek
theatre. It’s up to the audience to
visualize the scenes from those outlines.
And as in Greek theatre, both the horses and the actors
who are not engaged in a particular scene play the role of a Greek chorus. The actors sit on seats slightly off stage,
watching all the action, as Dysart urges Alan on into the depths of his soul, waiting
for their turn to engage in the “fight” in the ring.
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The lighting by Kirk Bookman enhances this sense of a
pugilistic ring, a bright spotlight on the action from directly overhead, while
other lighting is used to demark other settings, such as Alan’s room at home, the
stable which is Alan’s sacred temple, or a scene at a beach. The lighting is particularly effective in the
breathless scene when Alan mounts Nugget, PBD’s turntable stage whirling counter-clockwise
while the surrounding prism-like lighting turning clockwise outside to create a
dizzying sense of movement.
Costumes of the 1970s by Franne Lee are the real deal,
often having been “borrowed” straight out of her own time capsule closet,
particularly for Jill in her bellbottoms and boots. Every character seems to have a warm or cool
aspect to their clothing, but the boy has been clothed for comfort and
simplicity since he is often falling or flailing or clutching at his well worn
pullover. The horses, on the other hand,
are dark forbidding masculine beasts all in skin tight black, either wearing or
carrying their grotesque but compelling horse head masks, while mesmerizingly stamping
the ground with their ingenious booted hoofs.
One cannot overstate the importance of the work by the
sound designer, Steve Shapiro. It is an “otherworldly”
sound, not the mood music associated with most theatrical productions. Think of electronically reproduced fragments
of "Also sprach Zarathustra." Everything
becomes electronically magnified by Shapiro, including the horses’ “hum” when
dramatic action is rising. There is some
dissonant electronic music when necessary, especially when taking the audience
into Alan’s mind, making us all feel deeply unsettled.
With a large cast and such an abstract production, the
importance of the stage manager’s work is evident. Kudos to the very experienced PBD veteran James
Danford who oversees this seamless production.
Much has been made of the nudity in the play but it only
serves as a metaphor for underscoring that when things are stripped down to the
bare essence, there is no place to hide. And as Alan plaintively says,” a horse is the
most naked thing you ever saw.” It is
not gratuitous nudity but totally befitting the play’s honesty.
Palm Beach Dramaworks production of Equus is not only theatre to think about, but theatre which will
haunt your thoughts, electrifying in every way live theatre can be, brilliantly
written, conceived and sharply executed.
Photo Credits
1.Meredith Bartmon, Austin
Carroll, Robert Richards, Jr., Domenic Servidio, Steven Maier, Frank Vomero,
Nicholas Lovalvo, John Leonard Thompson; Photo by Alicia Donelan
2.Meredith Bartmon, Peter
Simon Hilton, Steven Maier; Photo by Alicia Donelan
3.Steven Maier, Domenic
Servidio Photo by Samantha Mighdoll
4.John Leonard Thompson,
Steven Maier; Photo by Alicia Donelan
5.Peter Simon Hilton,
Steven Maier, Mallory Newbrough; Photo by Alicia Donelan
6.The Horses of Equus,
Steven Maier; Photo by Samantha Mighdoll
7.Equus Palm Beach
Dramaworks Stage; Photo by Bob Hagelstein
