Bodies, blind horses and bestiality rumours: A conversation with Equus

I sat down with the students behind new play Equus to find out more about the play that forced us to see Daniel Radcliffe as a real actor (ish).

Al Gillespie (Director), Jared Liebmiller (Alan Strang) Becca Schwarz (Dora Strang) and Danielle Donnally (Stage Manager) answered my questions – any show featuring a famous, stark naked teenager is bound to get considerable publicity. My interest, however, was in discovering what Equus has beyond this, and in being informed of the idiosyncrasies of Gillespie’s interpretation.

The practising cast, clothed

Are you nervous or self-conscious about being totally nude on stage?

Jared: A little nervous. However it isn’t like I’m just streaking at a football game, rather the nudity is an important part of playing an interesting character. There are a few butterflies nonetheless, but we’ve practiced the scene and it isn’t that bad.

Al: I think we’ve practiced enough times that you guys (Jared Liebmiller, Cate Kelly) are you used to it.

Jared: Yeah I’m not the only nude character on stage. I think the bigger challenge (rather than merely the nudity) is making sure that the rest of play is good enough to justify this weird concession. Nakedness on stage takes element of the audience giving up their comfort zone.

Al: The strength of the play is that the nudity works naturally in the flow of the narrative, it wouldn’t work in other plays (if they all got naked in ‘who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf for instance). The reason why he gets naked is due to love and good intentions. We see the relationship develop, and we get involved in that with Alan. The nudity is about him being vulnerable with another character and the audience.

Becca Schwarz, who plays Dora Strang

What were the major directorial challenges in bringing this piece to life?

Al: What I love about Equus is the fact that it is inherently off-putting to an audience. Most plays here are very naturalistic, However Equus features a lot of non-naturalistic elements, namely: it repeatedly breaks the fourth wall; it can be ridiculous, and the writing even a bit cheesy sometimes.

I’ve really had to work with my actors to make it grand, theatrical in its purest sense, something you want to watch and that can only be done in a theatre. With a play like Equus you must act the off-putting parts with conviction, this alone is the difference between a good and bad play, especially a weird play like Equus. Our aim is to take the audience on a journey.

A staring competition

Have you (Al) found it difficult striking the balance between letting your actors be artists and ensuring the performances are infused with your own idiosyncratic vision?

Al: You find most of the play in rehearsal. I definitely have an idea of what I want before, but you find something truer in collaboration. I’m of the belief that a piece of work can never be the child of just one person.

I Like to see what actors think, and explore with them. In my rehearsals there is no penalty for doing something that doesn’t work. Evidently the play goes to some very dark places, so it’s important not to make the actors feel uncomfortable, instead we must find and push limits. Generally I think actors do same job as the director; making characters come to life.

Being a Director is in the name, my job isn’t to create but to direct them. I’ve found that being a dictator doesn’t bode well with actors, it is very off-putting and not creative.

Jared: The most important thing is playing around with the character, finding something that works for you and keeping it.

Becca: Al is good at helping you find the character, without forcing a character he envisioned on you.

Jared Liebmiller, who plays Alan Strang

What kind of artistic décor can we anticipate?

Danielle: The horse masks are dark wood steel wires, and the pallets on stage are a light, whitewashed colour. We’ve purposely chosen these colours to make a dynamic contrast on stage. We’ve gone for a similar idea with lighting, using contrasting bright lights to create the same sort of effect.

Al: The play invokes lots of images of ancient Greece, and it itself is close to an ancient Greek tragedy in style and structure; This is what happens, this is how it happens. We wanted to enhance the ‘greekness’ as such, almost creating the illusion of being in an amphitheatre. All actors stay on stage the entire time, with each character watching in judgement.

We also very much wanted to pare things back so we have ensured that everything is very straight in order to create negative space and a stark, barren feel. This way, the characters are very much in their own heads and the audience is not distracted from the narrative. The focus is on the actions, not on set pieces. Hopefully this will give the production a more brutal edge.

Horsing around

Can you give us a quick narrative summation of Equus?

Al: Dystart, is a psychiatrist in a provincial hospital. One day he’s given a new patient, Alan Strang, by his magistrate. Alan, a 17 year old boy who previously loved horses and has a very religious mum and atheistic Dad, blinded 6 horses and was found naked amongst their flailing bodies.

Throughout the narrative Dystart conducts an investigation to discover why he did this whilst being faced with dark questions about himself and role of passion and morality in society.

Becca: Oh, and no one actually fucks a horse as many people think.

Al: People see the play as an attack on religion, it isn’t. Religion doesn’t actually cause anything in Equus, rather it functions as a false start in that it seems at times like the cause of the action but in reality causes nothing.

Rather this play is about people who are sick and alone and what we do to fix them. We’re only running this play for two nights (instead of three) to ensure that the actors maintain the requisite physical stamina to go to the emotional, physical and psychological places this play demands of them.

A better actor than Daniel Radcliffe (probably)

What would you like to say to any potential audience members out there?

Al: This is a play for everybody, whether you study Science, Philosophy, or English there are no barriers of entry. Just come and it will all makes sense. I’d compare Equus to inception; it’s a smart movie but by no means incomprehensible.

So there you have it. Stark, barren, brutal, psychologically provocative and completely absent of any bestial activities. If any of this sparks your interest, grab yourself a ticket! Show dates are on the 13^th-14th October and tickets can be bought from the Byre Theatre website.