EQUUS AT THE ADC
Mark Jones as Alan Strong in Equus at the ADC
It is nearly 50 years since Peter Shaffer’s landmark play shocked audiences at the National Theatre : this three hour play of unrelenting intensity. It centres on a young man who deliberately in cold blood, blinds a stable of horses. The issues it raises continue to feel real and relevant today. Through a wider lens, it reflects the eternal conflict between the values of Apollo and Dionysus: the former represents reason, culture, harmony and restraint; the latter reflects the world of excess- unbridled passion and irrationality. The play’s major protagonist, Dysart, a child psychiatrist, is a cynical rationalist with a hidden hunger for ecstasy, whilst the seemingly unhinged seventeen year old perpetrator Alan Strang, burns with the torment of his religious obsession; his belief in a supreme Godhead ‘Equus’.
Mark Jones plays Alan with an energy and vitality, at once thrilling and exhausting to watch. This is full on immersive Method Acting; Jones’s body twitches, twists and writhes as he undergoes his ‘therapy,’ up to the point of the full confession and climax of the play. He physically and psychologically grows and expands as Dysart, played by Gregory Miller, shrinks into himself. Dysart’s own epiphany is the crippling realization of the emptiness of his loveless life - self-loathing consumes him. a transformational journey Gregory Miller convincingly embodies.
The conclusion of the dialogue between the two major characters is almost as terrifying as the horrific action itself. Who is mad and who is sane? Is it the psychiatrist or the patient? This is a complex play and the main actors render their difficult subjects with superb skill. Stable girl Jill Mason, played so sweetly and tactfully by Sarah Mulgrew, is the catalyst for a change of gear, as she tries to gently entice the manic teenager into having sex with her in the stables.. At that moment we see the depth of his fanaticism as well as his sexual obsession for Equus. When Alan mounts the horse in an orgasmic frenzy, it is often interpreted as a homoerotic moment, which reveals Alan’s inability to conform to ‘normal’ relationships.
Equus survives its fifty-year history as a modern classic, and like the ancient Greek plays, continues to have huge relevance. The Camdram production team has graced this exhausting work with huge energy and sensitivity.
Do go and see this marvelous production - it will fundamentally impact on you ‘If you receive my Meaning’. you will need see the play to understand this final runic reference.
Julie Stevenson
