There is something disconcerting about a large man slipping onstage, slowly lighting up a cigarette, and speaking very, very quietly without a microphone. Oh, dear, you think, he’s out of shape and short of breath.
In the new Broadway production of Peter Shaffer's Equus, however, that thought lasts only about three seconds, which is how long it takes you to realize that Richard Griffiths knows every millimeter of the story he is telling, as well as how to make you listen to every syllable of every word.
This is important because although Equus is “about” Alan Strang (Daniel Radcliffe), the messenger is Martin Dysart (Griffiths). It is Dysart who carries us along. He sets the story right off. A boy gets a job working in a stable, and one night he blinds all six horses with a grooming pick. Normally I’m not the kind who wants to sit around and hear more of a tale like that. I don’t go in for violence and death. I only watched Old Yeller once.
But Griffiths is so wrapped up in the story – aided by a script that is more poetry than prose – that we follow him like children after the Piper.
Dysart has agreed to take on the wild Strang boy because there is no one left to help him. The doctor will not let the boy be tossed away like so much garbage. This is his life’s work, and although it appears to lack the passion of the lives of some of his clients, Dysart is in fact passionate about it - only, it is passion masquerading as dull dedication. Passion in the daily way that gets feet on the floor in the morning. Passion in the way that will keep Dysart dogging after Strang until he relieves the boy of his pain.
But Strang is not only in pain, he is in passion as well. It is Strang’s outrageous passion that stakes a claim on his life and that will duel with any who present a challenge. Strang’s Equus passion is stronger than just about anything, and by digging in to the boy’s psyche, Dysart stumbles upon the truth that this boy has more life in him than he does himself.
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