Oct. 6, 2006 – Considered one of the great modern classics, "Equus" is a play about a young man, Alan Strang, who is forced to see a psychiatrist, Dr. Martin Dysart, after blinding six horses with a hoof-pick. It is a drama about the choice of pursuing dreams or settling for a safe, normal and passionless life. Through sessions with Dysart, we come to find out that Alan's upbringing and home life were so rigid and strict, so dull and repressive, that he invented a fantasy world for himself to inhabit – one in which horses figure prominently.
There is an essay by the playwright at http://www.hill-tv.com/EQUUS.htm. The play, written by Peter Schaffer and directed by Frank Bartolucci, will be performed on Oct. 19, 20, 21, 27, 28, Nov. 2, 3, and 4, at 8 p.m.; with an afternoon performance at 2 p.m., on Oct. 29.
"Can you think of anything worse one can do to anybody than take away their worship? …that boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life… I envy it."
These are the words of Dysart, who is charged with making Alan normal.
This is a play for mature audiences only. The cast includes: Jim Jester, Zach Hoffman, Nicola Emerich, Gita Beck, Dan Beck, S. Corey, Willis, Michael Sumners, Tonia Garnett, Mina Orenstein, Austin Fields and Richard Norman.
Tickets are at Pistarckle Theater, Marina Market, Draughting Shaft and Beans Bytes & Web sites or by phone at 775-7877. Sponsors are Caribbean Auto Mart, MSI Building Supplies, Frenchman's Reef Marriott, VI Council on the Arts.
