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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Oliver Johnson as Alan Strang with Nugget worn by Johnathan Talsma-James Equus
Highbury Theatre Centre
***** PETER Shaffer’s probe into the darker
workings of the human mind is never easy viewing but this remarkable
production has an hypnotic, magnetic attraction as each layer of the
narrative is painfully peeled away to leave the subject laid bare . . .
quite literally. The subject in question being Alan Strang, a
17-year-old loner saved from jail by a magistrate who decides he needs
help rather than incarceration after he has blinded six horses with a
hoof pick at the stables where he worked at weekends. Help comes in the form of psychiatrist Martin
Dystar, and as he tries to solve the mystery of Strang, we discover he
has almost as many hang-ups as his patient. He is nagged by
He has a home life that is a sham, a marriage in
little more than name - a home life that Strang might find easy to
relate to - and an obsession with primitive Greek culture and their
worship of a myriad of Gods. Worship is a running theme.
Understanding Alan’s journey to attacking the
horses is not easy, perhaps we were never intended to understand it, but
we do see the trigger points, his buttons that are pressed along the
way; a thrilling horse ride along a beach as not much more than a
toddler turned into a nightmare by an overbearing father; a mother with
overgrand ideas of her ancestry and a religious fixation; an atheist
father who despises religion, TV and pretty much everything else, and
who sees books and learning, and nothing else, as the only true course
for anyone not wanting to be as stupid as the masses. It all leaves Alan
as collateral damage from their own private war of a marriage. Susie May Lynch and Robert Hicks give a wonderful
portrayal of the parents, she a prim, proper retired school teacher who,
you suspect, embraced middle age long before her time; he a dour,
humourless printer who seems to hate the well-to-do yet despises the
working class he champions in his own personal battle with life and his
wife. Joanne Richards is convincing as the magistrate
Hester Salomon, who sends all the waifs and strays who have lost their
way enough to end up before her bench in the direction of Dysart. And from Rob Laird as Dysart and Oliver Johnson
as Strang we get two stellar performances. Laird has the opening and
final words and is involved with everything in between. Notwithstanding the number of lines, his is
hardly the easiest of parts to learn with its philosophical arguments
couched in words and phrasing that sound impressive on stage yet would
hardly slip easily into conversation down the pub, or anywhere else for
that matter. Johnson has the task of gradually revealing the
truth, and somewhat more, as the disturbed Strang tormented by ritual
and religion and a fixation on his own personal and private god, Equus. From the stroppy, callow, uncommunicative youth
who responds with TV advertising jingles, we follow his slow descent
into madness through a seamless mix of real ti The sparring between the two is fascinating to watch. Shaffer’s writing might be superb but it still needs actors to make it work. There is good support in particular from Helen
Denning as Jill Mason, the stable girl, who introduces Strang to the
stables and who inadvertently leads him to a shocking revelation about
his father before she tries to seduce him on that fatal night when 17
years of priming finally come to a head.
Sandra Haynes as the nurse, Jonathan Talsma-James
as the horseman on the beach, and Costas Calogirou as the stable owner
keep up the high standard of performance with the latter two, along with
Rob Gregory, Josh Higgs and Robert Hicks appearing as the symbolic
horses in stunning copper masks. Talsma-James plays both the horseman and horse on
the beach – horse and horseman as one is another recurring theme - as
well as Nugget in the stable and twice has to gallop around the stage
with Johnson on his back. Malcolm Robertshaw has designed an impressive
set, creating almost a stage within a stage overlooking the
psychiatrist’s office with the support cast perched, like a silent Greek
chorus, at the back. Andrew Noakes and Tony Reynolds have both done a
fine job on lighting and sound respectively. There are a lot of cues for
both music and sound effects as well as both subtle and dramatic
lighting changes which all had to be spot on to make the thing work
coherently. Director Claire Amstrong Mills has used the set
and limited props well and has produced a well-paced production of
Shaffer's 1973 play with the tension steadily building up towards the
final revelation. It might not be entertainment in the conventional
sense, nor is it a psychological thriller, more a detective story,
solving a crime in the mind, but whatever it is, it is a cracking piece
of theatre. To 27-06-15. Roger Clarke
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a
fear that in returning the disturbed youngsters referred to him to what
convention sees as normality he is not helping them but merely
condemning them to a life which is dull and empty, like his own, taking
away the essence of what made them and destroying the things they
worshipped.
me
and flashbacks to the final dramatic moments when Strang, stripped of
everything, including his clothes, stands naked revealing the awful
truth.