EQUIS

[OneLastRefrain2]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 12:25am

This may be a really really stupid question... so i apologize in advance. But I assume EQUUS has never made it on Broadway... right?
Updated On: 8/15/05 at 12:25 AM

[GypsyRoseLee]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 12:27am

I'm pretty sure it was on Broadway with Anthony Hopkins as Doctor Dysart.

And it's spelled Equus.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 12:31am

EQUUS -- note the spelling -- was one of the longest running hit Broadway plays of the 70s (if not THE longest), lasting three years, winning the Tony for Best Play and became a movie starring Richard Burton and Peter Firth (repeating his Tony nominated role as Alan Strang).

And yes, the long nude scenes were there in the original production (there was a LOT of nudity on the Broadway stage in the 70s and 80s).

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 12:37am

Margo - thank you for the info. It has beem many years since I have read the play and I should do so soon.

[GypsyRoseLee]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 12:40am

I recently saw a FANTASTIC production of it. Is the movie any good?

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 12:56am

The movie is well-acted, but not well-directed and loses the magic of the original John Dexter stage production. Not a great film, but I suppose it's worth renting for Burton and Firth.

I keep waiting for a stage revival of it. They've revived half of the major plays of the 80s already (Night Mother, Glengarry, Ma Rainey, Amadeus, Fifth of July, Crimes of the Heart, Master Harold, Noises Off, The Real Thing, Hurlyburly, Joe Egg, I'm Not Rappaport et al), yet haven't gotten around to bringing back one of the biggest straight play hits from the decade before.

It features two GREAT male roles and it's odd that one of the big older male stars hasn't been tapped to play Dr. Dysart. And there are a few outstanding younger actors I can think of who'd be outstanding as Alan (Keith Nobbs, T.R. Knight, Dallas Roberts -- however, the latter two, young as they look, are in their 30s and may a bit old it play it now).

And the nudity won't exactly hurt box office sales. Something tells me it'll be back sooner than later.

Updated On: 2/6/05 at 12:56 AM

[Jwei123]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:00am

EQUUS is my favorite play. Shaffer is aboslutely brilliant. I liked the movie, but i think seeing it on stage is better because the movie made everything SO literal, whereas the stage production, if done well and correctly, is very abstract.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:09am

I just doubled checked and EQUUS ran 1209 performances. In the 70s, the only plays that had longer runs were:

Sleuth (1222)
Same Time, Next Year (1453)
Deathtrap (1793)

[Jwei123]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:13am

yeah, equus really did have a pretty amazing run for a play in the 70s. It is really, really well written, and the character development for each character is stunning.

[OneLastRefrain2]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:16am

wow. I really do feel extremely ignorant/embarassed. please disregard this thread. I guess it just shows how young I am... how bad my spelling is, and how I have not figured out how to use google before opening my mouth.

I REALLY DO EXTREMELY APOLOGIZE FOR MY IGNORANCE AND STUPIDITY.

i hate when people do stupid stuff like this on the boards and i just did it myself. im sorry again

[Racetrack]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:25am

Great play. Like everyone else said it was a hit on Broadway. That's actually how Tom Hulce(Amadeus-movie) got his break on Broadway in Equus. He was understudying for Peter Firth and one afternoon Peter didn't show up and Tom had to go on. The audience loved him and then when Firth left the show he took over. Quite cool.

Love that play.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:27am

No apologies necessary, at all. You sparked a conversation about a play that many of us love, and for that your question is much appreciated. Your question was perfectly valid, not stupid and exactly what this board is for.

[Racetrack]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:30am

Exactly. No apologies. Never apologize never explain. Okay well sometimes you do, but in this case you don't. Nevermind I'll just shut up.

[WISHIHADATONY]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:34am

I saw EQUUS when Richard Burton was in it.....I believe Marian Seldes was as well. We sat on the stage in the "jury" seats they sold for students. It was incredible. Although I vividly remember being disappointed at some cast members inappropriately "breaking up laughing" a few times during the performance.

The nudity was erotic and brilliant and it is very well etched in my memory as is Richard Burton literally leaning seven inches from my face as he spoke some of his dialogue.

Richard Burton was given a special Tony award for his work in EQUUS and in accepting the award on the Tony Broadcast Burton said he was going to give that special Tony to "the young man who played Alan with him--I can't recall his name right now..but Burton said his name..................and that he was giving him the Tony because he was a much better actor than he, Burton, was.

Of course, Burton went on to be Oscar nominated for the film version, but lost to another Richard. Dreyfuss, for THE GOODBYE GIRL.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:35am

In addition to Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton, other Dysarts during the original production included Anthony Perkins, Alec McCowen and Leonard Nimoy.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:37am

Keith McDermott was Burton's Alan Strang, a terrific young actor and now a director off-off-Broadway (and still a very handsome man). And yes, he still has Burton's Tony.

Updated On: 2/6/05 at 01:37 AM

[Jim Colyer]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 1:41am

Jenny Agutter made Equus worthwhile for me. Jenny Agutter was one of my numerous celebrity crushes. She was Peter Firth's girl in Equus. She was in Walkabout (1971), Logan's Run (1976) and An American Werewolf In London (1981). Jenny is British and had that same Old World appeal for me that Agnetha Faltskog of ABBA had in the 1970s. I watched Equus a few times because of Jenny. I finally found the story so bizarre that I let it go because I was afraid it might affect me psychologically. Equus is Latin for "horse," and if I remember correctly, the kid had some kind of fetish for horses. It turned out that Richard Burton as his psychiatrist had hang-ups too. It is a strange tale. Was it not written by Peter Shaffer, the same guy who wrote Amadeus? I see Minnie Driver as a kind of modern day Jenny Agutter. I am 59 now and attracted only to women young enough to be my daughters. Equus must have twisted me in some way.
Jim Colyer Updated On: 2/6/05 at 01:41 AM

[Lucy Harbin]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 2:18am

Completely agree, Margo, that T.R. Knight would be a brilliant Alan. In fact, after I saw SCATTERGOOD (in which he played a disturbed, socially awkward boy from the British Isles who was repressing a whole lot of emotion) I felt like writing to Shaffer and saying, "Since there'll obviously be a Broadway revival of EQUUS sometime in the next five years, come see this kid's performance and you've found your Alan." You're right that his current age raises some questions about whether he would be believable as a teenager, but with that boyish face of his I bet he could still pass.

And for the record, this is completely based on artistic considerations and has NOTHING to do with my lusty desires to see T.R. Knight in the buff. Nothing whatsoever...

[eslgr8]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 2:33am

Since I didn't know who T.R. Knight is, I googled him and yes, I would like to see this young man in Equus, based purely on the talent he has demonstrated in plays at the Guthrie, off-Broadway, etc., and not at all on the nudity required by the role in Equus. (Here's a picture from his Guthrie Bio.)

[WISHIHADATONY]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 3:09am

Margo, thank you soooooo much for Keith McDermott's name! I remember his performance was as mesmerizing as his beauty.

Posted: 2/6/05 at 3:17am

Margo - owing to the demographics of the Broadway audience these days, the Dysart casting will be the draw. Who do you see as viable? I, personally, would like to see Kline try it, to see if he could pull it off (quite a stretch, I realize.) I also would sell my mother for tickets if Sam Sheppard agreed to do it.

Posted: 2/6/05 at 3:29am

Also, Margo, two I didn't see listed in your 'best of the 80's' list were Bent and M Butterfly (which is one of the best scripts I've ever encountered.) Do you think they're too dated? I think they might be more valuable now than ever.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 6:17am

DGrant,

It wasn't a "best of the 80s" list -- it was a list of some of the 80s plays that have ALREADY been revived on Broadway.

I wonder if either Bent or M Butterfly would have enough appeal at this point to make a mainstream stage revival viable (they both became rather unsuccessful low budget films). It's not so much that they're dated, but I'm unclear whether there's a pressing reason to bring them back at this point (especially M Butterfly -- not nearly enough time has passed -- I think that the vast majority of the audience remembers what the main plot twist is, so they wouldn't want to bother paying Broadway prices to see it again).

Bent may be ripe for a decent revival, off-Broadway perhaps (I saw it done off-off-Broadway again just last year). I'm still not convinced that it's a "great" play, but it can be effective with a good production. Perhaps, if a first rate director wants to re-think it and stage someplace like the Donmar or the Goodman first, we might see it again in New York at some point.

EQUUS strikes me as a much more timeless play than either Butterfly or Bent -- better in construction and more universal in theme. Dysart is a great role for any actor in the 40 to 70 range -- Kline, Spacey, Freeman, Denehey, Neeson, Bosco, Lithgow, Irons, McKellan et al ......

Shepard just returned to the stage for the first time in 30 years (only the second time in his life) to do a limited engagement in Caryl Churchill's "A Number" at NY Theatre Workshop. He did it because he said he thought that it was the greatest play he had encountered since Beckett's "Waiting For Godot." I wouldn't expect to see him commit to another stage run ....... well ..... EVER. I really think that was it. He really isn't anything special as a stage actor and I got the sense that it really wasn't his thing and he really doesn't care for the rigors of it -- HATES it probably. And, if I'm being honest, frankly, I truly doubt that he has the "chops" or technique to pull off Dysart on a Broadway stage eight times a week ...... he's a "film actor" at best and should stay in that medium for his future forays into acting.

He really was just "good" in "A Number" in a modest-sized venue like NYTW (200-odd seats), but even there, his performance was so small and internal that I simply couldn't imagine him being able to give a performance that would "fill the space" of a Broadway-sized house (he gave half of his performance with his head down, talking to his belt so that anyone beyond the first four or five rows of the tiny raked house couldn't see anything, but the top of his head and could barely hear what he was saying -- it sort of worked for this particular character, but, c'mon he could NEVER play a role like Dysart in a 1000 seat house ..... not that he would ever agree to do it).

Updated On: 2/6/05 at 06:17 AM

[Jon]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 7:36am

I saw the First National Tour win Ken Howard. The staging was brilliant. The only disappointmen was that neither of the young people looked particularly good in the nude. Those were the days before everyone became obsessed with working out and getting "buff". I suppose it was realistic that they were somewhat pasty and saggy.

[Mamie]

Posted: 2/6/05 at 9:33am

Daniel Davis played Dysart almost 30 years ago. He was way too young for it then, but I'd love to see him do it now. Something post-Cage of course.