Theater Review (NYC): Equus - Page 2

Like a switch in the railroad track, Shaffer turns the table and puts us face to face with ourselves. Just like that. Through Dysart, we go from observing to embracing in one second. The story’s eccentricity loses its grip and we are dropped into its center. And there we stay. It is this plummet that makes Griffiths' skill so critical. Wherever we travel as we watch this production, Griffiths has been there ahead of us.

Griffiths and Radcliffe are a matched set. Just as the tale’s lurid qualities fade, so does the recognition that we are watching Harry Potter and his mean Uncle Vernon. The two actors engage in their battle with no holds barred.

The rest of the cast consists of American actors. Carolyn McCormick and T. Ryder Smith are steady as Strang’s parents, who lived a quiet life of suburban resignation before their son went south. The American actors' struggle for the perfect regional English accent is noticeable, however; the accents range from watery in Anna Camp’s case to being laid on with a trowel in the case of Kate Mulgrew.

This is not the old Equus where the sexual undertones were overtones. This is an Equus that comes from the heart via the head and still manages to get you in the gut.