Shaffer writes in his introduction that he was inspired to write this play after hearing from a friend about an incident where a young man had blinded some horses in a small English town. Shaffer's friend died before revealing any further details of the incident, and Shaffer wrote Equus partly as a way of explaining what may have caused the young man's actions. In the play, teenager Alan Strang is committed to a mental institution after blinding six horses with a metal spike. Psychiatrist Martin Dysart tries to discover what would have caused Alan to do such a thing. It is revealed that Alan views horses as a sort-of god/slave figure, to be worshiped and, at the same time, to be tamed. Alan's highly religious mother and equally-highly anti-religious father help round out the main characters of the play, along with the actors who play the horses.
Ah yes... the horses. The style of Shaffer's play is very minimalist, with plain wooden benches doing duty as psychiatrist's couch, cinema seating, and horse stables. The "horses" in the play are actors in plain brown clothes, wearing no costume except hooves with metal horseshoes on their feet, and stylized horse-head masks of metal and leather. When Alan "rides" one of the horses, he simply climbs on the actor's shoulders. The simplicity and starkness of the costumes and set, and the absence of any scenery, help focus the reader's (and, I assume, the audience's) attention on the powerful words being spoken by the characters.
Reading this play was a very draining experience for me. The underlying religious and semi-sexual reasons for Alan's actions emerge, bit by bit, through Martin's skillful (and sometimes devious) methods. As Alan described the events leading up to the blinding of the horses, I could picture these events clearly in my mind. Reading this work definitely made me want to see a live production of the play.
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