Sir Peter Shaffer's 'Equus' has seen many on-stage renditions in the four decades since he penned it, and even spawned a film adaption. From late July through to September, it plays at Brisbane Arts Theatre.
If the content and history of the play aren't already convincingly impressive enough, conversing with director Brenda White would put the mind of any critic at ease.
“It's obviously based on something that Peter Shaffer heard from a friend about a real situation where a young man had blinded some horses, and that idea sort of stuck with him; he created the play based on that one little news item,” she says. “The play is not a true story, but he used that as the premise for it and it does tell the story of a very disturbed young man.”
“In treating the boy [Alan Strang], the psychiatrist discovers some truths about his own life, in that he's never actually achieved what he wanted to achieve in life; he's never followed his dreams. He does in fact reach the stage where he supposedly cures the boy of this terrible mental state that he's in because of what he's done,” Brenda explains.
The psychiatrist manages to get through to Alan, but has his doubts about it along the way.
“When you make somebody what we term 'normal', you actually take something away from them,” she says. “You take away their creativity perhaps, you take what makes them special, and turn them into somebody like everyone else who lives an ordinary life, and never actually achieves any dreams that they have.”
'Equus' has been performed and adapted on stage a number of times, but also notably in the 1977 film by Sidney Lumet, starring Richard Burton and Peter Firth. It received favourable reviews, but was said by many purveyors of theatre to have lost the depth and spirit of the story. In a 2007 West-End revival of 'Equus', Daniel Radcliffe from the 'Harry Potter' films played Alan, bringing the production into mainstream pop culture.
The story is an exploration of self, for two seemingly very different individuals, and has an overarching theme of the discussion of mental health and the oppression sometimes caused by its various kinds of treatment.
“It's an interesting idea, and it also brings up the fear and the way that we treat animals,” Brenda says. “It is very powerful as a play, because it's done without a lot of trappings - the set is very simple. The horses are ever-present.”
The director believes that keeping a performance interesting is extremely important. “You have to try and come to things as fresh as you can, and try and bring a freshness to a production,” she says. “It's quite an exciting play to be directing.”
'Equus' plays at the Brisbane Arts Theatre from 30 July-3 September.
