Equus by Peter Shaffer. Free Rain Theatre Company at The Hub, Kingston, Canberra, 12 - 22 November, 2025.
Reviewed by Frank McKone
Nov 14
CAST
Martin Dysart – Arran McKenna
Alan Strang – Jack Shanahan
Dora Strang – Janie Lawson
Frank Strang/Harry Dalton – Bruce Hardie
Hesther Salomon – Crystal Mahon
Nugget/Horseman – Sam Thomson
Jill Mason – Lily Welling
Nurse - Caitlin Bissett
Horses – Jamie Johnston, Finlay Forrest, Samara Glesti, Bianca Lawson, Robert Wearden
CREATIVES
Director – Anne Somes
Associate Director – Crystal Mahon
Movement Director – Amy Campbell
Set Design – Cate Clelland
Director of Marketing – Olivia Wenholz
The drama Equus,
based on a true report of a young man stabbing the eyes out of horses,
is at its heart about a professional highly-regarded child psychologist
becoming doubtful about the legitimacy of his work.
Anne Somes’ production is top-class in design and acting quality – proof once again of the value of The Hub in our community.
Wikipedia records: The
narrative centres on religious and ritual sacrifice themes, as well as
the manner in which Strang constructs a personal theology involving the
horses and the godhead "Equus". Alan sees the horses as representative
of God and confuses his adoration of his "God" with sexual attraction.
Also important is Shaffer's examination of the conflict between personal
values and satisfaction and societal mores, expectations, and
institutions, and between Apollonian and Dionysian values and systems.
For me, now 50 years on from the first production of Equus,
personal confusion about one’s “God” and sexual attraction – which
makes the play powerfully dramatic – is not the personal issue.
Canberra is replete with professionals, whose doubts about Apollonian
and Dionysian values and systems make the character of Martin Dysart the
one we can identify with.
At a more purely bureaucratic level,
consider the years of conflict and emotional confusion in the life of
whistle-blower Derek Elias, assistant secretary for regional processing
contracts in the Department of Home Affairs since 2019, reported in
detail this very day as I write, November 15, 2025, in The Saturday
Paper.
While the blatant male nudity in the final scene of Equus
is no longer surprising and certainly not as controversial as it was in
1973, it brings to light Dysart’s dilemma. He has engineered his
patient into acting out what really did happen when he and the girl who
worked with him in the horse stables met, presumably for his first
sexual experience. We experience watching how a young man’s twisted
imagination, worshipping his all-knowing “god” named Nuggety, leads to
emotional disaster and the blinding of the horse.
This is drama
at its most demanding of our sympathy, even empathy if we dare,
especially in close-up in the intimate space of The Hub.
So, what
does Martin Dysart worship? Not a horse, but the belief that he can
really make a deluded child patient become normal – whatever “being
normal” means.
This is where the writing skill of Peter Shaffer
comes into play. The essence of great theatre, as we all know from
Shakepeare, is universality. We all have our Nuggety.
Mine was
my worship of the two young lads in autocratic Portugal who publicly
raised a toast to freedom, leading to the establishment of Amnesty
International in 1961. In 2004 I represented Amnesty on the Australian
Government Working Group responding, as Australia was required to do, at
the end of the United Nations Decade for Human Rights Education.
In
the meantime I came to understand the necessity of the Arts – and in my
case Drama and Theatre – in education, as basic to the understanding
and practice of human rights. It’s fair to say, I guess, that though my
33 years as a full-time professional teacher, trying often to achieve
Martin Dysart’s aims in my own way, ended in 1995 as prostate cancer
made its play – I’m still a human rights educator through drama as a
nowadays unpaid reviewer.
So Equus means a great
deal to me, even if I look around and wonder if Amnesty International is
still as great a god for good in the confusing world of self-induced
climate change, as I had hoped when I turned 20 in 1961.
See Free Rain’s Equus, find your Nuggety, and open your eyes to world betterment.
 |
| Lily Welling as Jill Mason – Jack Shanahan as Alan Strang |
©Frank McKone, Canberra
