Robert Reviews EQUUS
Robert Reviews EQUUS
Robert Reviews EQUUS#1
Posted: 12/17/08 at 11:16am
“Equus” opens with one of the most fascinating—and beautiful—moments in modern theater, with a boy on the verge of manhood embracing a horse as he would a lover on a mostly dark stage. The play becomes even more mesmerizing when we learn that this seventeen-year-old adolescent not only worships the horse as his god, but also blinded the horse and six others with a metal spike one night in a mad frenzy.
The hook to “Equus” is great, and the revival of Peter Shaffer’s landmark 1973 production, currently playing at the Broadhurst Theater, often reaches that level of greatness. Often, but not always. As many times as the viewer is enthralled and in awe of the show and actors, there are other moments where the production flounders and becomes almost wince-inducing—and there seems to be no happy medium between the two.
After the incident with the blinding and those metal spikes, the boy (Daniel Radcliffe) is sent to a mental institution, and the head of the hospital (Kate Mulgrew) places a conflicted, sometimes self-obsessive therapist (Richard Griffiths) on the case. And through much of the first and second act, several horses (Lorenzo Pisoni and Spencer Liff, among others) watch over the proceedings.
Some of Shaffer’s play has aged rather badly, and at two hours and forty-five minutes the show is much too long for its own good, and Griffiths is handed much of this burden. He is handed some extremely lengthy, sometimes nonsensical monologues, including two that open the play. Griffiths handles Shaffer’s longwindedness like a champ, knowing his character so well and using the body language and dialogue inflections to introduce himself to the audience despite the numbing words exiting his mouth. He is never overwhelmed and always steady, easily righting the show whenever it lapses into tedium.
Radcliffe is splendid as the mentally unstable boy, easily shifting between innocence, rage and, when necessary, understatement. When the boy remembers a day years before when he first encountered a horse, Radcliffe becomes a small child, not an actor portraying one. When he rages at Griffiths one moment and needs sympathy the next, it does not seem jarring because Radcliffe sells it without missing a beat. Hopefully this will not be his last theatrical role, because the Great White Way would be losing a phenomenal theater actor to the lights and buzz of Hollywood.
About a third of the way through the first act, it becomes apparent that all of the characters seem to be living in their own plays, spouting their dialogue not to each other but to themselves, and when the characters speak to one another, it’s like two cats scratching at one another for an instant before retreating and licking their respective wounds. Mulgrew’s character attempts to break through to Griffiths several times (and how odd that she never gets her own scene with Radcliffe after waxing lyrical for moments about how the boy interested her) but acts more like an inner conscience than an actual character. The boy’s parents (Carolyn McCormick and T. Ryder Smith) come into play, but also seem to be entrenched in their own worlds, and any interaction they have with their son is strained at best. And when they speak with the doctor, it is almost like they are speaking to themselves, with the doctor just happening to overhear. This style of characterization is first interesting, later taxing, but the payoff in the second act when the boy and his doctor finally (finally!) communicate over a cigarette makes the wait worth it.
Some of the other things they talk about, earlier in the painfully paced first act are too much. The entire religious aspect of the show might have been revolutionary in the ‘70s, but here comes off as self-important and pompous, and a scene where Radcliffe whips himself in front of a horse begging forgiveness for his sins, complete with overdone lighting and sound effects, becomes almost laughable. It hurts the pacing and is a can of worms that should have been cut out for the revival, not reopened.
I seem to be avoiding the elephant—or in this case, horse—in the room, and that is the horses themselves. I doubt that any design can properly portray the six horses in the show as powerful gods and beautiful beings that the boy easily falls in love with, but “Equus” gets the former right, at least. The horses are certainly imposing beings, with their proud stature (lifted from the ground in high metal hooves) and cold metal masks with glowing eyes. No wonder Radcliffe goes bonkers—put me in a room with those things for five minutes and I’d be screaming in terror. The actors embody the beasts beautifully, making them menacing and proud, their movements fluid and easy throughout.
The supporting cast is a mixed bag, perhaps overwhelmed by the excellence of the two main performers. Anna Camp, as the girl the boy cares for but ultimately spurns, has that same mix of innocence and adult that Radcliffe has, and the two share a lot of chemistry in their brief scenes together. McCormick and Smith are bland, perhaps purposely so, in their parental roles. Mulgrew tries to do much with the little she is given to do, and perhaps that is the problem. She’s too charismatic. Too overpowering. She is a lead actress playing a minor supporting role, and it doesn’t work.
Oh, but when “Equus” is great, it’s phenomenal. Griffiths and Radcliffe are a force of nature on stage, both together and separately. It’s just a shame that the story they are interpreting for us isn’t as fresh or riveting as it once was.
Rating (out of 5): ***1/2
Updated On: 12/17/08 at 11:16 AM
re: Robert Reviews EQUUS#2
Posted: 12/17/08 at 2:32pmThank you so much for the care you took in writing this review. I saw a late preview, and your descriptions brought it all back to me. Powerful review of a powerful show!
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