Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Equus, Bristol Old Vic/touring
Stripped of most of its period trappings, Peter Shaffer’s disturbing 1973 play is given a new lease of life
PIC CAP Fatal attraction: Ira Mandela Siobhan (Nugget) and Ethan Kai (Alan Strang) in Equus Pic:The Other Richard
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
WHILE previous stagings of Equus frequently focused on the young protagonist Alan’s infatuation and ultimate blinding of his equine charges as a lament for the loss of mysticism and spiritual passion in a materialistic world, this English Touring Theatre production brings out all the latent homoeroticism in the text.
The intimacy and passion shared between the young stablehand and Ira Nubella’s proud physical embodiment of Nugget, the horse at the centre of his obsession, highlights the boy’s otherwise arid life.
As the horses, the semi-naked and muscular performers move with equine grace and strength and they become objects of deification for Ethan Kai’s tortured teenager Alan as he lives out a midnight fantasy at the stables in order to escape a world of suppressed sexual desire and impotence.
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