Equus Tells the Tale of Disturbed Youth

How would you feel about going to see a theater performance featuring a greatly disturbed young boy who stabs the eyes out of five horses? Frightened? Possibly. Intrigued? Definitely. And it was just that intrigue that held so much of the audience in Hall Auditorium at the edge of their seats during Wednesday night's performance of Peter Shaffer's epic play, Equus.

Set in present day southern England, this "modern day Greek tragedy" unflinchingly explores the meanings of passion, sexuality and worship in the lives of a boy and his psychiatrist, Martin Dysart. Beautifully directed by senior Robert Ross, this performance succeeds in communicating the difficulty of reconciling a young boy's passion with a world bent on the "normal" and the "adjusted."

Sophomore Daniel Neuman plays Alan Strang, a 17-year-old boy committed to a psychiatric hospital for brutally stabbing out the eyes of five horses at the stables where he worked. Unhappily living under the guises of his over-controlling socialist father and his more lenient but zealously religious mother, young Alan is caught between his ideologically polarized parents. Unable to watch television and force-fed Bible stories, Alan is prevented from adjusting and becoming a "normal" child. He can barely read and has no friends, and when spoken too, often resorts to spouting off the jingles from television commercials.

As the story progresses and Alan begins to trust Doctor Dysart (first-year Ben Stuber) and communicate with him more at the hospital, we learn the causes of the boy's neuroses. Running from the unceasingly watchful eyes of his father's criticism and his mother's religion, Alan creates his own Christ figure through the horses at the stables. As his sexual obsessions with these animals grow, so does his creativity. Alan creates Equus, the deity residing within the soul of every horse, and unleashes his passion as he steals away every night at midnight to take one of the horses out riding.

Recalling Native Americans who conceived of the first Europeans they saw on horseback as one complete divine being, Alan and Equus ride out as one god conquering his foes as Alan revels in his forbidden worship. In the end, though, both Alan and Dysart come to crisis points. The young boy, at first blinded by his new God, realizes that even the horse's eyes can become as watchful as his parents.

Dysart, at first supremely confident in his powers as a child psychiatrist, comes to doubt the worth of his profession when he compares his passionless life and broken marriage to the power and transcendence in his patient's existence.

Rampant with Greek imagery, Ross' set concept works wonderfully with Dysart's obsession with ancient Greek culture and themes. The "horses" wear togas and their wonderfully haunting masks mimic the visages of Greek gods with their bronze facades and spiked crowns. The music works just as well. Featuring mostly Greek chant, the haunting vocals float in and out of the action to highlight climatic scenes and tense moments. Much praise must be given to the costume designer, Associate Professor of theater and dance Chris Flaharty, sound designer Jen Groseth (a lecturer in theater) and all the other students who contributed to the well constructed stage design.

The actors involved also met the challenge of Shaffer's script. Neuman played his disturbed young character with convincing pathos and dynamics, and the supporting cast, especially the "horses" in their uncomfortable masks and footwear, deserve recognition as well.

Ross, who began his involvement with theater in high school and hopes to continue with directorial study in graduate school, has presented the Oberlin community with a truly moving performance of Shaffer's work.

As disturbing and outside of our reality as it may be, Equus remains irresistible for precisely those reasons. By raising questions about human sexuality and the meanings of passion and worship, Shaffer's play taps visually and ideologically into the cores of deeply moving human experience. Ross' team showed as firm a grip on the presentation of these ideas as they did on the hearts and minds of their audience.