The Equus reviews ...

... are in, and they seem to enjoy frolicking about with words like "equimaniac" and "hippophile."

Guardian eminence Michael Billington puts it bluntly, right at the top of his review: "Forget all the prurient press speculation about Harry Potter's private parts. The revelation of this revival is that Daniel Radcliffe really can act."

(Bonus reading: Billington on the history of stage nudity, a story Tboy likewise enjoyed exploring a few years back in this City Paper piece. Though Tboy wasn't genius enough to slip a "hoo-ha" past his editors. Or to end on "half-cocked.")

The Times' Benedict Nightingale likewise takes the direct route: "OK, it was exactly what all that prurient hype promised."  (Aside: When did critics for The Times of London begin launching their reviews with American colloquialisms?)

The Telegraph drools a bit, saying that "the diminutive (but perfectly formed)" Radcliffe "brilliantly succeeds in throwing off the mantle of Harry Potter, announcing himself as a thrilling stage actor of unexpected range and depth."

The Independent, by contrast, is content with "Radcliffe acquits himself well."

Most everyone likes John Napier's design (though for what it's worth, Tboy thinks the horse mask looks like a fruit bowl, at least from the Reuters photo on the Telegraph site).

As for the play, here's Nightingale:  "Equus is at root dated, pretentious and even a bit pernicious ..."

And Billington: "What disturbs me, 34 years after the play's premiere, is the way ... Shaffer romanticises pain."

Both of the big boys take swipes, sidelong or otherwise, at R.D. Laing, whose notions influenced Shaffer's thinking on the blandness of normality.

So there you have it: The critics, as usual, are all over the map.

Comments

[Kryztov Lindquist]

Mr Billington seems to overlook that a certain playwright, who in all his glory, has in my humble opinion... romanticised pain numerous times. As if we all are not guilty of or comforted by that frailty at some points in our lives?... if only as a defensive survival mechanism... how much poetry, art music would cultures be left with if pain was only presented in a dry, clinical and realistic way.

For an eloquent take on the British lexicon, check out Peter O'Toole's ( robbed of and Oscar... again!)recent comments on Shakespeare.
Not that Shaffer is the Bard, however I have seen this same complaint (Billington's) over the years re Equus and it strikes me as being a bit of self help pyscho babble. Pretentious...pernicious... wow! Was he reading his own review? The mind is not so easily catorgized.

[Kryztov Lindquist]

Just an afterthought...Years ago, my father gave me the below by RD Laing, framed ...it is part of a longer piece entitled... Knots

They are playing a game.
They are playing at not playing a game.
If I show them I see they are,
I shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing
I see the game.

Funny to have Laing taken to task under such circumstances. But that is only normal...isn't it?

It also reminds me of one of Clov's lines from Endgame..."you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you... some day." I think I paraphased, sorry, it has been many years.