Equus

This show was imported from the old website. If you are able to provide any more information, please contact the Archivist.

Peter Shaffer’s renowned play is brought to the Bedlam Theatre with a mix of ritual, religion and horse gods. Set in a psychiatric hospital in England during the later part of the 20th century we are confronted by the horrific deeds of a seventeen-year-old boy, Alan Strang, who has mysteriously stabbed out the eyes of six horses. Here he is examined by psychiatrist, Martin Dysart, who slowly uncovers a whole personal religion that Alan has constructed to worship his personal deity: the horse god EQUUS. Shaffer uses this to force us to see how materialism and convenience have destroyed our capacity for passion, worship and ultimately pain thus reducing us to a state of desensitised apathy. Dysart comes to envy Alanв??s passion and is left questioning his treatment of his patient. This new production plays heavily upon the religious imagery and themes of the play converting the feel of the theatre space as much as possible back into the church it once was.