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Dir: Thea Sharrock.
Cast: Simon Callow, Alfie Allen, Linda Thorson, Laura O'Toole
Description: Simon Callow and Alfie Allen star in Peter Shaffer's play about a psychiatrist investigating why a young man stabbed six horses in the eyes. Directed by Thea Sharrock.
Trains: Tube: Piccadilly Circus 
Phone: 0870950 0915
Website: www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk
Daniel Radcliffe on stage at the Gielgud as an emotionally damaged boy
Richard Griffiths plays Dysart, a psychiatrist who treats Radcliffe's disturbed character
Never in modern times has such excitement been stirred by the prospect of viewing a very few inches of adolescent male flesh. The flesh in question was duly exposed last night when Daniel Radcliffe, fresh from fame as Harry Potter, bared his body as 17-year-old horse destroyer Alan Strang.
Peter Shaffer's dated, though still gripping psychological drama Equus broods about the dangers of surrendering both to instinctual passion and rationalist conformity.
Radcliffe plays Strang and, glaring eyes apart, emphasises his vulnerability. This lower-middle class boy blinds six horses and then refuses to speak about his ghastly crime.
When it came down to basics, though, Radcliffe's striptease with his would-be girlfriend, Jill, an equally nude Joanna Christie, loomed small compared with the impact of the stylised scene of the horses' destruction.
Six actors wear wire-frame horses' heads, with metal platform hooves. Their hollow eyes glow in the dark. Whinnying, rearing and hoof-stamping, they suffer Alan's attacks.
For sheer shock effect nothing else in Thea Sharrock's undercharged production matches this scene - but it can.
For Equus launches an intriguing why-did-he-do-it investigation. Shaffer tuned in to an early Seventies reverence for psychiatry and psychotherapy as systems to probe and relieve the workings of the mind.
John Napier, who designed the original 1973 National Theatre production, now sets the play expressionistically in the dark night of the soul.
Three or four cube shapes serve as chairs centre-stage while the stables for horses encircle the action. All the exits are sinister, long walkways.
Richard Griffiths is far too affable, winsome and relaxed as the psychiatrist Dysart.
Alan's parents, Jenny Agutter's declamatory, stilted magistrate, and the horses' owner all come to tell stories that offer clues and insights into Alan's mental state.
The boy himself, played by Radcliffe with an air of pathetic, small-scale belligerence, becomes voluble thanks to Dysart's unbelievably successful promptings.
We the audience are, therefore-offered tempting opportunities of psychological detective work to work out what has gone wrong. Unfortunately, Strang's motives remain enigmatic and ultimately unbelievable pretexts for butchery.
Son of sexually repressed parents - a religious mother and an atheist father - Alan discovers early liberation and sexual excitement astride a horse ridden by a handsome young man.
His bedroom picture of sado-masochistic images of Jesus is replaced by one of a horse, the animal that he invests with both divine and erotic salience.
His reason for blinding the horses may have to do with revenge for the fact that his desire for them renders him impotent with Jill or shame that these divine creatures should witness his sexual antics.
Shaffer's casebook finally leaves you shaking your head in disbelief.
Of equal concern is Dysart's eloquent contempt for his own sexless, empty life and fear that in curing Alan - an unbelievable process - he leaves him to joyless conventionality. This smacks of romantic tosh: passion is no inherent good and Alan's eros made him a social danger.
Equus works as theatre, if not as psychological case-study, if shrink and patient are made desperate by the battle over passion, rationalism and religion.
Griffiths, though, packs no emotional punch, lacking the agitated despair Alec McCowen brought to the role, while Radcliffe's touching, little-boy lost Alan never convinces you he is wild with desire for horses or girls. Equus still fascinates, but this revival lacks horse-power.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Jenny Agutter is in this production, playing the magistrate? Doesn't anyone remember that she played Jill in the 1977 film version?
- Mrbuddwing, Washington, D.C., USA
I saw this recently and I have to disagree on several points. I thought Dan's portrayal of a shy but eager lad with respect to Jill was spot on. He wants to explore but under the gaze of the horses, he becomes self conscious and guilty. It is also my experience that there are patients who DO want to "get better", even though they don't want to take the meds or therapy. Hospital would be better than jail, and he had nowhere to go, really. Of course, how in the end Dysart would "cure" the lad remains open, but he had, to me, come to a decision, which had been his struggle. I also thought that their relationship was believable and touching. Both, nay, all the actors had done an excellent job. If questions remained open, that is the nature of such things.
I don't think I have explained my view well enough, but ultimately I would have to say it worked very well. Not familiar enough with the text or prior/any productions, and supremely impressed with how they executed the play, I only wished I could see the play again and yes, Dan. He was thrilling. Unfortunately, my ticket cost me well over a thousand dollars, not that piddly 50 pound thing you guys all quote (damn airfare/hotels).
- Brenda, Canada
