equus

you may not know this, but one of the only reasons anyone reads my blog is because once someone i work with saw daniel radcliffe at starbucks. (i kid you not: that got linked somehow on imdb, and legions of ladies who love hp came running.) so i may be about to quadruple my readership. we shall see.

my cousin was in town last weekend, and as a fellow theater-lover, he wanted to take me to a show. (and no one turns down free broadway!) he let me pick between "equus" and "spamalot", and as i am more into the order of the phoenix than [insert clay aiken reference here], i chose the depressing play about a horse. (also, clearly i am not a claymate, as i could not come up with an aiken reference. i consider this a personal victory.)

"equus" is an interesting show, as it takes a horrific actual event (the blinding of horses), and tries to suppose a reason behind it. daniel radcliffe plays the stable boy who is locked up after maiming the horses he seems utterly enamored of, a wounded boy who has a religious-ecstatic relationship with the animals. as an actor, he did quite well, i thought, at moving between the sullen bits in the hospital and the scenes that show his life pre-crime: at the beach (when he first sees a horse), dealing with tough parents, going on his first date. the play and production itself left something to be desired. as dictated by the script, it's a spare production with very few set pieces and a lot of blocks that get moved around by the actors an almost distracting amount. it's extremely talky, and richard griffiths, who plays the psychiatrist, was saddled (ha! horse pun!) with much of the monologizing, which he seemed somewhat fatigued by. the most evocative element was the horses, played by men in delicate metal horse head-pieces and hooves, who truly moved like the animals, stomping and strutting and reacting to the slightest irritant. (horses are actually an excellent metaphor for the mental state of this play, i think, in that they are so on-edge, so uneasy, and also so controllable by their man and master.)

overall, i am glad i got to see it, but it wasn't the experience i was expecting. i am an emotional person, easily moved, and even i left the audience dry-eyed. the play didn't produce any new emotions in me, i felt no sympathy for the characters or their situations--in a way, it felt very clinical. which i suppose is alright for a play that rejects religion and experience and is essentially about psychiatry.