EQUUS Reviews- Page 2

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 9/25/08 at 11:41pm

I only skimmed it, but it sounded like another one of his psycho-babble reviews.

Perfect for the psycho-babble of EQUUS. Glad to see it's getting favorable write-ups.

[winston89]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 12:12am

The Onion gave it a pretty good review.
Onion Review of Equus

[jordangirl]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 12:17am

I was there tonight and am still processing. In awe at the moment. I definitely want to go back to get things I know I missed from overload. Wow.

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 12:19am

Great seeing you, Jordangirl. So glad you enjoyed it!!!

[jordangirl]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 12:28am

Great to see you too WaT! :) The second act WAS better (and also because the couple next to me moved to other seats so I could move over and not deal with that freak next to you who insisted on leaning forward even after I asked him twice to please move back. He didn't block *much* of the stage thanks t the way those seats are staggered, but at a couple of points he blocked enough. (And the usher recognized him from at least last night and probably some others.)

*edit to add* I'm not saying the first act was bad. As I said, I loved the whole thing. :)

Updated On: 9/26/08 at 12:28 AM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 12:46am

John Simon is Positive:

'...With blinding cleverness, Shaffer has devised a theatrical Rorschach test, onto which each of us may project his own desires. There is melodrama enough for tabloid devotees, pinchbeck mysticism and pseudo-poetry to make Kahlil Gibran's "Prophet" envious, and tendentious philosophizing to lift the hearts of anyone who has it in for psychotherapy and cherishes his neuroses.

This said, we get a production that is a sight for sore eyes and susceptible ears. Radcliffe's Alan is compelling proof that there is life after wizardry: he quells and quakes, adores horses and provokes humans with equal proficiency and looks great disrobed. Ditto for Anna Camp, fine actress and pert looker, who plays Jill, the girl who tries to seduce Alan, with disastrous results...'

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601098&sid=aUKcdyO4lCaY&refer=movie

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 12:49am

The Newark Star-Ledger is Mixed:

'It's old news by now that young Daniel Radcliffe gets naked during "Equus," but the "Harry Potter" film idol bravely and believably exposes his character's troubled soul as well in a smashing Broadway debut.

Bolstered by co-star Richard Griffiths' easy expertise, Radcliffe peels away the emotional levels of the tormented yet ultimately touching stableboy, Alan Strang, with skill and unmistakable stage presence.

Seasoned nay-sayers like me are likely to find Peter Shaffer's 1973 drama more of a slog than a sensation at the Broadhurst Theatre, where director Thea Sharrock's patchy production opened Thursday. Viewers coming fresh to Shaffer's dark story should expect a potentially powerful mix of psychosexual mystery and surreal theatrics that doesn't quite ignite...'

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/arts/index.ssf/2008/09/the_agony_and_the_equusty.html

[jewishboy]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 12:50am

Haven't seen it yet (hope to!). But, I thought Brantley's review was one of his best. Its nice to know that as chief critic (somewhat) of the New York Time he was able to maintain a level of decency regarding the whole publicity of Radcliffe, unlike some other papers. It was a nice break from his overly flamboyant reviews of some other celebrity filled productions (Julia Roberts in Three Days of Rain comes to mind). While they are entertaining to read, I enjoy this style of criticism much more.
Updated On: 9/26/08 at 12:50 AM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 12:59am

Newsday is Very Positive:

'...Radcliffe, who has been growing up in public since 12, made his justly celebrated stage debut last season in London with Richard Griffiths in this revival of "Equus," Broadway's first since Peter Shaffer's psychosexual thriller won the Tony Award in 1975.

The actor, tiny but a commanding feral presence, manages to be both extraordinarily lucid and mysterious as Alan Strang, the alienated provincial English boy who literally worships horses but blinds six of them in an explosion of psychosexual religiosity. Radcliffe, despite the visceral physicality of the role, appears supremely comfortable in his own skin - and, yes, kids, thanks to the nude scene, we get to see all of it.

"Equus" always was pretty much of a crock - pseudo-serious humanity-on-trial hokum dressed up in mythic profundity.

But it remains excellent hokum...'

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/stage/ny-etequus5856783sep26,0,6445773.story

Updated On: 9/26/08 at 12:59 AM

[Jinks]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:09am

I'm on the Brantley bandwagon as well. Very enjoyable production but safe and limited. Saw it from the stage seats though and it was a thrill.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:14am

Theatermania is Very Positive:

'Plays are written to be performed. But there are playwrights who consciously or unconsciously rely on performance and production to gloss over script deficiencies. Some of that goes on in Thea Sharrock's stunning Broadway revival of Peter Shaffer's 1973 work, Equus. Not only is the John Napier set design elegant, but the entire presentation vibrates with urgency. It's extraordinarily well-acted by Tony-Award winner Richard Griffiths as the troubled psychiatrist Martin Dysart and stage novice Daniel Radcliffe as the even more troubled 17-year-old Alan Strang, who has been institutionalized after putting out the eyes of six horses in the stable where he works.

In a show that's all about the eyes, it's only fitting that Radcliffe -- minus the nerdish Harry Potter specs -- turns out to have eyes that pierce their way to the auditorium's nether recesses. Moreover, he plays Strang as a wire so tightly pulled that he constantly seems about to snap. Minus his clothes for the famous (and extended) nude scene, he's completely immersed in his character's heart-wrenching dilemma...'

http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/15447

[BroadwayProducer2]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:18am

It was my first Broadway play (not musical).
I was so excited. U can see my video review on YouTube. Lol
The play is great and no need to tell more about it.
I sat on the “stage seats” and there were some disadvantages and advantages:
A plus: You see behind the stage work and you see some details from angles that impossible to see from the orchestra (and in the nude scene too, lol).
A minus: The seats not exactly on stage. It’s above the stage (on the balcony level!!!). And you have to lean all the show to see something on stage. Not really comfortable and not exactly on stage.
More in my video review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsvAdwr2Y48

YouTube: Equus Broadway review

[KJisgroovy]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:19am

So is it interesting/hilarious to anyone else that the original Nugget, Everett McGill went on to play Lorenzo Pisani in The Merchant and that Nugget in the revival is played by Lorenzo Pisoni? Maybe? Prolly not.

kmc

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:20am

The New York Sun is Mixed-to-Positive:

'...It is ironic and a bit unfortunate, then, that Mr. Radcliffe's performance is by far the more controlled and Mr. Griffiths's the looser. (Both are repeating the roles they played last year in London; the rest of the cast is new.) In general, however, Mr. Radcliffe accentuates the strains of evasion and scorn common to all adolescents without slighting the deeper veins of unrest. And even though Mr. Griffiths falls back on rumpled-academic shtick here and there — with much rubbing of the eyes and scratching of the head as he ruminates — he also gives Dysart a welcome burst of energy whenever his assumptions are jostled.

The climactic shift in tone from Alan's Dionysian reverie to Dysart's Apollonian regret happens far too abruptly at the end of this "Equus," a jolt for which Ms. Sharrock must assume much but not all of the blame. (It comes immediately after Mr. Radcliffe's endlessly hyped nude scene, one that he and his costar Anna Camp handle with finesse.) While John Napier's original stage design remains haunting — a sextet of fine dancers led by Lorenzo Pisoni eerily impersonate the horses with the aid of skeletal masks and hoof-like platform footwear, a riff on the cothurni from Dysart's beloved ancient Greece — the staging of Alan's passionate equine encounters relies too heavily on musty psychosexual pageantry. (Ms. Sharrock's corny sound effects and fog machines don't help, though...)'

http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-wizard-casts-his-spell-in-the-stable-equus/86652/

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:25am

The Hollywood Reporter is Negative:

'...As Martin Dysart, the provincial psychiatrist who reluctantly agrees to treat the young man at the urging of a sympathetic magistrate (Kate Mulgrew), Griffiths is deeply disappointing. The role has been a vehicle for triumphant turns from actors ranging from Anthony Hopkins to Richard Burton. But Griffiths, whose rotundity robs the proceedings of its homoerotic undertones, barely seems to register, failing to convey Dysart's underlying despair about his own emotionally barren life that causes him to envy his patient for his passion.

Director Thea Sharrock's staging is similarly listless, resulting in an evening that feels far longer than its two hour, 40-minute running time. She was smart enough to recruit the services of original designer John Napier, whose wooden amphitheater-style setting and giant metal heads for the six strapping actors playing Alan's equine victims are again effective. But the lack of dramatic pacing proves deadly, and the overwrought staging of the blinding scene, which resembles a Martha Graham ballet gone wild, is more laughable than frightening...'

http://www.reuters.com/article/artsNews/idUSTRE48P0L620080926

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:32am

The Wall Street Journal is Very Positive:

'...In this last respect, of course, "Equus" is as dated as a Nehru jacket -- most of the closets that were still locked tight in 1974 emptied out long ago -- but Mr. Shaffer's solid craftsmanship hasn't aged a day, and the showy theatricality of Thea Sharrock's staging knocks every remaining crumb of rust off the script. John Napier, who designed the original production, has once again given us a bare-bones set that suggests with cool simplicity a Greco-Roman arena. David Hersey's rock-concert lighting is downright spectacular. As for the large cast, I don't see how it could be improved on, while the much-ballyhooed scene in which Mr. Radcliffe and Anna Camp strip to the buff turns out to be an integral part of the play, one for which Mr. Shaffer has laid the groundwork so scrupulously that it feels not gratuitous but inevitable.

This is, in short, a near-ideal revival of a play that is, for all its obviousness, a consummately effective piece of theater -- no masterpiece, but a rattling good show.'

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122237881828776431.html?mod=article-outset-box

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:40am

The New York Post gives the show 3 Stars out of 4:

'... This is possibly a reading embedded in Thea Sharrock's direction, which in many respects lacks the power that flowed through John Dexter's original staging. Moreover, the rest of the cast - with the exception of Anna Camp, as a young woman trying to initiate Alan into the mystique of sex - seems less secure this second time around.

The unhappily married Dysart finds himself envying the intense psychic reality felt by Alan, who worships horses and finds sexual release atop a steed.

Dysart can cure him, but in that cure rests the seeds of mediocrity.

Would a psychiatrist feel like this today? Then again, would a playwright?'

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09262008/entertainment/theater/giddyup__130754.htm

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:42am

Review Roundup

Backstage.com, New York 1
Rave

Newsday, TheaterMania, The Wall Street Journal, Word of Mouth
Very Positive

AM New York, The Associated Press, John Simon, The New York Post, USA Today
Positive

The New York Sun, Variety
Mixed-to-Positive

The Daily News, The Newark Star-Ledger, The New York Times, Talkin’ Broadway
Mixed

The Hollywood Reporter
Negative

The Onion
Very Hilarious

Updated On: 9/26/08 at 01:42 AM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 1:50am

Backstage.com is a Rave:

'Sometimes theatre professionals and audiences recall great original productions with an "I was there, you weren't" mentality that excludes the unfortunate and the unborn. The original production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie in 1945 is an example. To this day, Laurette Taylor's Amanda Wingfield is viewed by many — even the generations that never saw her — as the untouchable, unachievable standard. So perhaps it's inevitable that director Thea Sharrock's stirring revival of Peter Shaffer's Equus will be compared with John Dexter's original 1974 staging of the play, for which Dexter and Shaffer won Tonys. But how wrong-headed it would be for this brooding, marvelous play and this revival's gifted lead actors to be viewed on anything but their own well-deserved terms...'

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003855369

[CJR]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 2:21am

Got back a little while ago from the opening. I enjoyed the show quite a bit more than I expected to. Knowing the story, I wasn't going into it blind, but never having seen the original, it all hit a little harder seeing it play out on stage. A more disturbing play than I've seen in recent years, but it definitely makes you think.

Daniel did a great job - I was quite impressed. Though I did feel that he didn't grow with the character the way he should have. I was a little disappointed in both Carolyn McCormack and Kate Mulgrew. I felt their characters were slightly under developed - an issue I believe lies in the portrayal. Don't get me wrong, I loved both of them.... I could see the potential for more though.

All in all I enjoyed it. I was close - row B in the orchestra (next to Marian Seldes and in front of James Lipton; whose ear was being chewed off by Christy Carlson Romano) so it was QUITE loud at times and VERY smoky at the end of the first act. I would just say sit further back in the orchestra to truly appreciate the staging.

Oh and the 'horses' were pretty, pretty men. The curtain call made me happy lol

How many other bww'ers were there? Bythesword84 and I were there - and while I saw a lot of people I knew, none of them were from here. For anyone who was there, I was in a green dress and knee high brown riding boots.

By the way, when did Haley Joel Osment stop being cute and start looking like a serial killer? I was like duuuude.

Updated On: 9/26/08 at 02:21 AM

[joe5]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 7:35am

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2008/09/26/radcliffe_bares_soul_in_equus/
Nice review in Boston Globe. joe

[broadwayjim42]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 7:55am

Loved it when Brantley says he winced every time Kate Mulgrew opened her mouth.

I feel your pain Ben, although at last Satruday's matinee, only a handful of people applauded her exit.

So out of whack with the rest of the production it wasn't funny.

[kec]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 8:33am

Peter Marks of the Washington Post has weighed in:

"He's such a forthright, stouthearted lad, our Daniel Radcliffe. These attributes always serve him well, whether he's being subjected to late-night TV ribbing by Conan O'Brien or playing that magical movie character -- you know, whatshisname, the one with the round specs and the scar on his forehead? (Wait: It'll come to me.)

So now he has gone and repurposed all that pluck for a role on Broadway that has him engaged in dark art rather than the dark arts: that of Alan Strang, the wildly disturbed teenager who blinds six horses in Peter Shaffer's '70s psychiatric drama, "Equus."

This is Radcliffe's first serious stage portrayal, and though his contribution won't blow you away, it does get a basic job done. Small-framed and fit-looking, with a rivulet of scruffy beard fringing his jawline, the 19-year-old Radcliffe portrays Alan as a lost man-child drifting needily into the orbit of a shrink, who recognizes in his new patient the rapture missing from his own sterile existence."

It comes across to me as somewhat snide and condescending, especially with the references to Harry Potter.


A Destabilized Equus

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 8:47am

THANK YOU, BustopherPhantom, for posting Glad to see all the (very) postive reviews

Judging from that, what the HELL play was the reporter from The Hollywood Reporter seeing?! (HOLLYWOOD being the operative word) there What does anyone in Hollywood know about live theatre?

Here's a little something from Yahoo. Not really a review, but...

https://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080926/ap_en_mo/theater_equus_premiere

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 9/26/08 at 9:59am

I haven't seen the production, but Brantley's review was one of his better ones. Exceptionally well-written.