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Equus | Introduction

Peter Shaffer was inspired to write Equus by the chance remark of a friend at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The friend recounted to Shaffer a news story about a British youth who blinded twenty-six horses in a stable, seemingly without cause. Shaffer never confirmed the event or discovered more of the details, but the story fascinated him, provoking him ‘‘to interpret it in some entirely personal way.’’ His dramatic goal, he wrote in a note to the play, was ‘‘to create a mental world in which the deed could be made comprehensible.’’

Equus depicts the state of mind of Alan Strang, the imaginative, emotionally-troubled stableboy who serves as the play’s protagonist. In relating his themes, Shaffer combines psychological realism with expressionistic theatrical techniques, employing such devices as masks, mime, and dance. The ongoing dialogue between Alan and Dr. Martin Dysart, the boy’s analyst, illustrates Shaffer’s theme of contrary human impulses toward rationality and irrationality. Curing Alan, making the boy socially acceptable and more ‘‘normal,’’ Dysart frets, will at the same time squelch an important spark of passionate creativity in the youth.

Equus, which some critics labeled a ‘‘psychodrama,’’ premiered in London at the Old Vic Theatre on July 26, 1973. The production was a huge success, impressing both audiences and critics alike and securing Shaffer’s reputation as an important contemporary dramatist. Equus had its American premiere at New York’s Plymouth Theatre on October 24, 1974, and later received the Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play was adapted into a film in 1977.

Equus Summary

Act I
The play opens on two scenes: Alan Strang fondles the head of a horse, who in turn nuzzles the boy’s neck; subsequently, Dr. Martin Dysart addresses a lecture audience about the case of Alan Strang, a troubled boy of seventeen who blinded six horses. Dysart begins his narrative with the visit by his friend Hesther Salomon, a magistrate who managed to persuade the court to put Alan in a psychiatric hospital rather than in prison. As the action on the stage enacts this recollection, Salomon tells the doctor that she feels something very special about the boy. Dysart agrees to see Alan, although he is already overworked.

In their first session, Alan is evasive, singing advertising jingles in response to Dysart’s questions. Alan is clearly startled when the psychiatrist coolly responds to the jingles as if Alan were speaking normally. Upon conclusion of the meeting, the boy is reluctant to leave the doctor’s office, and, as he is finally ushered out, he makes a point of passing ‘‘dangerously close’’ to Dysart.

Returning to the lecture format, Dysart reveals to his audience that he is suffering nightmares in which he is an ancient priest sacrificing children, on whom he sees the face of Alan. At the same time, however, Dysart feels he has achieved a breakthrough with his patient, who is beginning to open up. Dysart pays a visit to Alan’s parents in the hopes of learning something of the boy’s background. The father, Frank, is still at work, but his wife Dora informs the doctor that Alan was always captivated by horses, particularly a story about a talking horse called Prince, who could only be ridden by one special boy. Alan also memorized a Biblical passage about horses in the Book of Job; he was particularly taken with the Latin word Equus. When Frank returns home, he tells the doctor that he blames Alan’s problems on the Biblical passages about the death of Jesus which Dora read to the boy night after night. Frank shares his belief that religion is only so much ‘‘bad sex.’’

Dysart must discover the reason behind Alan’s screams of ‘‘Ek!’’ in the night. Although Alan has grown more communicative, he still resists interviewing, making the doctor answer his own queries for each question Dysart poses. Question follows question, but when Dysart asks Alan directly why he cries out at night, the boy reverts to singing television jingles. Dysart dismisses Alan, and this reverse psychology causes Alan to begin talking about his first experience with a horse. At the beach, a man let Alan join him on his horse and ride as fast as the... » Complete Equus Summary