Product Description

When a deranged boy, Alan Strang, blinds six horses with a metal spike he is sentenced to psychiatric treatment. Dr Dysart is the man given the task of uncovering what happened the night Strang committed his crime, but in doing so will open up his own wounds. For Dysart struggles to define sanity, and justify his marriage, his career, and his life of normality; ultimately he must ask himself: is it patient or psychiatrist whose life is being laid bare? The most shocking play of its day, Equus uses an act of violence to explore faith, insanity and how the materialism of modern life can destroy humanity’s capacity for pain and passion.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32982 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

About the Author
Peter Shaffer was born in Liverpool in 1926. Among his plays, The Salt Land (1954), Equus (1973) which won Shaffer the 1975 Tony Award for Best Play as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, Amadeus (1979) which won the Evening Standard Drama Award and the Theatre Critics Award for the London production.

Customer Reviews

Thought Provoking
Firstly, Amadeus is a brilliant play, but I thought what is Peter Shaffer doing witing about horses and nudity in this play, has he lost his marbles? It is really only because this play has been put on again to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic that I decided to give it a try. Still, with some trepidation I started reading it only to find that I became immediately fully immersed in the story.

Alan Strang is admitted to a psychiatric unit uner Dr Dysart after blinding six horses. As Dysart delves into Alan's psyche he finds that he has a domineering father and deeply religious mother. After being on a horse at six years of age Alan has never forgotten the experience; indeed if you have ever ridden a horse you will know that primitive sense of power that it gives you, that is somehow partly indefinable. Over the years Alan begins to project his mother's religion onto horses.

With Alan's parents it would seem inevitable that the way he is brought up would at some stage result in a breakdown of some sort. Alan starts having ecstatic religious experiences whilst amongst horses at his local stables, indeed to a point of eroticism. And when Alan is offered his first full sexual experience in the stables this results in disastrous consequences.

Whilst Dysart is analyzing Alan he begins to question his own marriage, and to think about his career and, what normalcy really means. What can appear madness to one person can be another persons religion.

This a thought provoking dama. It makes you think about madness and religion, and also about intolerance and persecution. I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this play, and would definitely recommend it to others.