Equus

So I toddled off to see Equus. I hovered reluctantly outside as the muggy sky cleared to sunshine, feeling achy from the gym and just generally not in the mood. I feared this was one theatre trip too many, and had bad memories of reading the play in my youth. Should I try to flog my ticket?

I am therefore happy to report that it was a triumph: gripping, well acted and staged and stimulating. Perhaps the psychology underpinning the play has dated: after the unlocking of the DNA code the psychometer has swung very much from nurture to nature; but the themes of the play seemed very much contemporary: pain, religion, parenting, passion, what it means to be sane, what it means to be alive.

As I was leaving the theatre, there was a party of German girls, I’d guess early twenties, chatting away loudly in German (as is their wont) and the only comprehensible word I could make out was “sexy”. Yeah, it was, in a funny kind of way. I think because it was so intense. Richard Griffiths of course was magnificent, a real presence, maybe a tad hammy, but generally low key yet powerful. Daniel Radcliffe was fine too, but you don’t want to know about his acting do you! Well hold your horses for a sec.

Its funny how certain ideas or themes gett into the ether; here are just some of the resonances between this play and others I have reported to you on recently:

1. Mental illness as a device for exploring social issues – although Equus was written in the early 1970s, it had many thematic similarities with the more recent The Wonderful World of Dissocia, particularly the notion of what sort of a cure it is that removes the passion and energy from the patient.

2. Nudity – you’ve got to say, Daniel Radcliffe has balls, remarkably big ones I can tell you. If you ask me, he needs to take a trip round the corner from the theatre into the hinterland of Soho and get himself porned up and release some of the tension – I remember on a group trip to Israel somebody ending up having to go to hospital with ball bag pain cause of the MSB – it had come to a head, so to speak, when he went in the Dead Sea and something in the salty water triggered the pain. Talking of which, I’ve got a new porn queen heroine – she’s called Naomi, is Israeli, proud to be Jewish, the daughter of a rabbi, and very, very, very and I mean very very, filthy. Anyway enough of Harry Potter’s goblets, back to nudity sui generis. Faust, Platinov, Panthesillyarse, Michael Clark last year, everyone is getting their kit off (and I have high hopes for the piece of dance theatre I’m going to this weekend). No wonder Mademoiselle La Latte Days goes to the theatre so much. But what does it tell us. A desire for the theatre to strip away all external matter to expose the raw psychology of the characters? A desperate measure to get the punters in (£50 a ticket Equus cost me)? A restatement of western liberal ideals in the face of attack from fundamentalist religion?

3. Wild horses. Coriolanus went for pantomime style horses ie two men under a rug, but incredibly realistic so that I actually thought for a moment they were real. Equus (as in the original 1970s production I’m told) went for dancer-type actors wearing cage like horse-head masks and mini-stilts with horse shoes underneath. In the climax of the first half, little Harry Potter rides on one and the stage revolves faster and faster, with powerful kinetic force, a brilliant abstract impression of speed and power.

So that’s it for the theatre for the moment. Nowt much on that appeals until September, but don’t worry, there will be plenty of other things to tell you about.