THE ID AND THE EGO CLASH IN A NIGHT OF CONTRADICTIONS
Author: By BOB EVANS
Date: 14/08/1987
Publication: Sydney Morning Herald

FOR the sake of classroom discussion, if not theatrical table talk, let's
do Equus the favour of considering it as a fascinating mixture of
contradictions.

Playwright Peter Shaffer says he thinks of it as a tragedy brought on by
the collision of two kinds of right.

At the heart of the conflict are the competing forces of passion and
reason; the confrontation between humanity's urge to express the mystical
union with life and the moralising orthodox, ecclesiastical religion. Or,
to place the contest within the Freudian paradigm, the clash between the
impulses of the Id and the restraints of the super-ego.

The contest is personalised in the characters of the psychiatrist, Martin
Dysart (played by Shane Bryant), and his patient, a young boy, Alan
Strang (played by David Wenham).

They are brought together by a gratuitously violent crime committed by
Alan. Inexplicably, he blinds five horses at a stable where he works on
weekends.

The contradictions of the play, however, go beyond the intricacies of
interpretation. The play is more than a mixture of the sacred and profane.
In its dramatic process Equus is at times profound and at others facile.
The play generates moments of breathtaking theatricality, particularly at
the climax of the first act, but it is also susceptible to prosaic devices
of plot and schematic analysis.

In my mind there is a major flaw in Shaffer's analysis which can be partly
explained by the fact that Equus is a product of its time. The central
dilemma owes more than a little of its inspiration to the anti-psychiatric
stance popularised in the late 1960s by R.D.Laing.

The only solution that Dysart and, I believe, Shaffer present in the play
is a sort of spiritual emasculation which is called "normality". The play
is limited to that view - it is posed as the tragic dilemma of the work.

Shaffer builds the process of the play on the restorative power of Alan's
acknowledgment of his crime but does not allow that such a process, if
continued and nurtured, could expand the possibilities of "normality".
Passion does not have to be sacrificed to the truth. The final
contradiction of Equus concerns Peter Williams's production at Glen
Street. Occasionally the theatricality of the play survived the
unintelligible direction and the inadequate performances from the cast,
with the exception of Melissa Davis as Jill, the stablehand.

Shane Bryant lacks the authority, the maturity and the passion to make
Dysart credible. David Wenham's Alan is nothing at all in particular. He
evokes neither genuine anger nor sympathy. Linda Stoner is inadequate as
Hesther Salomon, the magistrate. There is no subtlety or mystery in her
stifled relationship with Dysart. She plays it all at full gush. The rest
of the cast go through the motions like pony club nags who cannot raise a
trot.