Equus Performance Commentary

On paper, beam Shaffers genus Equus is extraordinarily vivid serviceman of literature. Onstage, it is a visu completelyy engaging masterpiece, where the complexity of breathing life into characters and settings by the perfected interplay between actors and the stage is an enthr tout ensembleing and emotional experience for all those involved. Like all theatric successes, Equus has endured different convoluted productions of the magnificent original, some cadences succeeding, and sometimes failing, to poke and prod the audition into figureing-questioning- imagining.A handful of directors gather in fallen prey to the vicious desire present within all of us to maneuver a play into real life to concord it relatable to surroundings we argon so familiar with. Those who do- fail fail to empathize the concepts that Equus strives to imbibe in its readers. Equus is non a fair fairy tale dressed in the tattered rags of disillusionwork forcet, Equus is mad and b atomic number 18, mis erly in its pity for a naive listening that likes to think itself jaded. In Shaffers words, Upstage, forming a backdrop to the whole, are tiers of seats in the modality of a dissecting theatre In these sit the inter pile. If one allows their mental imagery to roam as it result (and definitely as Shaffer wished it to be) the sense of hearing will form a rather imposing backdrop, hundreds of eyes that look conquer upon the tormented actors and silently, quietly, judge. Eyes are an important recur circumvent motif in Equus those of Equus, Alans jealous God, that perpetually watch Alan are emulated by the horse-actors and the audience that view the stage from above and the sides.Not only is the judging audience meant to be a sort of stand-in for God, entirely they also check the masses the forever judging, cruel, intransigent and sentient being that is smart set. The stage that the audience looks down is sparse, and movable. This allows the square of wood set on a circle of wo od to be rotated, to mimic the various settings as needed Alans house, the stable, Dysarts office, and the sector where Alan performs ecstatic and ritualistic worship.Shaffer describes the rail that surrounds the wooden square as resembling a railed boxing ring. This boxing ring has been interpreted in galore(postnominal) different ways, one critic compares Alan and Dysart as competitors of a sort, the boxing ring fits in with the intimate contest in which psychiatrist and patient are locked. In a play whose protagonist strives for freedom, the boxing ring may also fight down the inevitable battle against society and the reality article of belief that Alans worship will lose, a ritualized public combat.The rails represent bondage, chains, turmoil, and signify to the audience the tension, conflict and the unsatisfactory conclusion to Equus. Simply perceive them onstage is enough to subliminally communicate to the viewers the angst and epic struggle between right and wrong withi n the play. The benches that seat the other actors in Equus the horses, Alans parents, the nurse, Dalton, Jill, are significant in the fact that the actors never leave them- unless they are called upon stage.They sit and watch the play along with the audience, and play the role of society in Alans life. They too, judge Alan, they judge his worship, and they condemn it. The horse masks that are hung piece of ass the stage once again provide the images of eyes, the eyes of God, that watch and score Alan as one of their own. The actors that play the horses, when not in character, join the displace that watch on in distaste as Alan passionately, ecstatically, communes with his God.Different directors sport taken Alans God to skyrocketing and plunging levels of meaning simply by dressing the horses differently. The sign production of Equus (directed by John dexter) had the horses dressed in tracksuits of chestnut tree velvet, with light strutted hooves, about four inches high. The h ooves (or hoofs as Dexter called them) check been a staple in all versions of Equus, but directors have taken liberties with the tracksuits and gloves of chestnut velvet that Shaffer prescribes.Some productions have well muscled, bare-chested men portraying the horses, with strapping to suggest bridles, whereas in others, the actors playing the horses were completely nude, adhering to Alans tone that The horse isnt dressed. Its the most naked thing you ever saw The nudity of the horses also creates an atmosphere of homoeroticism and homosexuality, which some critics have interpreted as the true source of conflict in Alans life instead of religion. Peter Shaffer was deliberately trying to create imposing, menacing figures when he created the horses, not the loose familiarity of a domesticated animal.The actors, he wrote, must never deflect on all fours, or even bend forward He insisted that all the motions of a horse must be created mimetically, through movements of various bod y parts. The actors who play the horses undergo vast amounts of training, and most commonly even out of dancers, use to swaying movements and odd body contortions. Not only did Shaffer decide to distance his horses (who may even be called gods) from animals by having the actors playing them stand upright, but also by not giving them paper Mache horsey-jokey heads.The horse masks utilise in Equus are tough masks made of alternating bands of gold wire and leather. These huge, regal and god-like caricatures of horse heads enable the actors to toss and turn them with equine ease. Created by Dexter, they were deemed risky by Shaffer as they projected a double image the horses head, and the clearly seen actors head underneath it. Shaffer was eventually convinced by Dexter, who argued that Shaffers Equus was about a double image and consequently horse masks would simply be a physical manifestation of it.As with the horses, directors have indulged themselves in taking liberties with t he lighting of the play, although the instructions are not as rigorous for the lighting as it is for the horses. Some directors have used colored lighting to evoke a rich, captivating scene for Alans memories, and bleak, etiolate lighting for the scenes which take place in Dysarts office. Shaffer himself describes the lighting for Jill and Alan in the stables as anti-erotic, it is meant to be a dissection of a troubled mind, not an excitingly full-grown remembrance.The lighting is used to its best effect when Alan blinds the horses, the cones of light that surround the prototypical the horses out of a nightmare, creates an eerie, haunting image of light flashing on the flowing masks, an image truly out of a nightmare. Most interest of all though, is the actual dissection of Alan and the tantalizingly concealed hints that clue the audience in too late that Equus is a story told by Dysart. He is the only actor to ever address the audience, and the odd flashbacks and strange time la pses make sense f one were to consider them happening in Dysarts memory. The fact that we are seeing Alan through Dysarts eyes changes the way we view Alan. We grow to pity him, feel empathy for him, and even envy him. This is not because Alan is a genuinely compelling character (his story told from the view commove of Dysarts associates, perhaps, would cause the audience to turn against him), but because Dysart envies him and admires him and views Alan positively, as something good, something worthy of sympathy.The story being told from Dysarts point of view also makes it seem more like a mental detective story, complete with a crime, clues, and a whydunnit conclusion. Peter Shaffers playtic psychological thriller, Equus, is definitely the sum of all of its parts. A glorious mix of suspense, drama and pure controversy, Equus comes alive to the audience in a provocatively tangible way as a shimmering, stomping, tossing deity.