Book Twenty-Two of the Book-a-Week QuestEquus
by Peter Shaffer (1973)
The previous book I read (review here) was full of philosophical gobbledygook and when I started reading Equus (the first play in my Book-a-Week Quest), it contained psychological analysis, too, so I was slightly hesitant. The play certainly won me over, however.
Teenager Alan Strang has blinded six horses by stabbing them in their eyes. It is psychologist Martin Dysart's job to determine why. It's certainly not an easy case to crack, and throughout his analysis, Dysart begins to question his own belief system and whether he truly is happy in his chosen profession.
The play has strong religious and sexual overtones and it's tough to describe them both without seemingly writing an essay. Simply put, growing up with a strongly religious mother and an atheistic father has certainly created some "issues" for Alan in the God department. Seemingly sheltered and repressed (and depressed), Alan looks at horses as his God(s), his friends, and his one true passion (even at times in an overtly sexual sense). Interestingly enough, although he understands the oddness of the boy, the psychologist Dysart finds the boy's passion oddly invigorating in that he has never in his life been so fervid about anything. Dysart begins to question everything about himself -- his marriage, his profession, his belief system. The two characters couldn't seem more different, but in the end, I think we begin to see that they are oddly similar (or perhaps they may not be similar now, but Dysart longs to be similar to Alan in some respects).
Certainly there's too much to talk about in this play to express any in-depth analysis within the confines of three paragraphs, so I'll just stop now. That being said, I'm kind of upset I missed seeing this up on Broadway this past year. The way the stage directions were described seemed incredibly interesting and it certainly would've been unlike anything I had ever seen before.
Teenager Alan Strang has blinded six horses by stabbing them in their eyes. It is psychologist Martin Dysart's job to determine why. It's certainly not an easy case to crack, and throughout his analysis, Dysart begins to question his own belief system and whether he truly is happy in his chosen profession.
The play has strong religious and sexual overtones and it's tough to describe them both without seemingly writing an essay. Simply put, growing up with a strongly religious mother and an atheistic father has certainly created some "issues" for Alan in the God department. Seemingly sheltered and repressed (and depressed), Alan looks at horses as his God(s), his friends, and his one true passion (even at times in an overtly sexual sense). Interestingly enough, although he understands the oddness of the boy, the psychologist Dysart finds the boy's passion oddly invigorating in that he has never in his life been so fervid about anything. Dysart begins to question everything about himself -- his marriage, his profession, his belief system. The two characters couldn't seem more different, but in the end, I think we begin to see that they are oddly similar (or perhaps they may not be similar now, but Dysart longs to be similar to Alan in some respects).
Certainly there's too much to talk about in this play to express any in-depth analysis within the confines of three paragraphs, so I'll just stop now. That being said, I'm kind of upset I missed seeing this up on Broadway this past year. The way the stage directions were described seemed incredibly interesting and it certainly would've been unlike anything I had ever seen before.
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