The Theater: Freudian Exorcism

EQUUS

by PETER SHAFFER

Shining, it was Adam and maiden ...

So it must have been after the birth

of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the

spellbound horses walking warm

Out of the whinnying green stable

On to the fields of praise.

—Fern Hill, Dylan Thomas

In Equus, it is the Old Adam and night, and six horses are wheeling in terror. They have been blinded by a 17-year-old boy wielding a metal spike. Spurred by this lacerating image, Peter Shaffer has fashioned a galvanizing psychological thriller.

It is also a Manhattan cocktail-party play,...

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