Equus Superior To Shaffer

Equus is a play in which present and past collide and intertwine in spectacular and thematically significant ways. Psychoanalysis (a process of evaluating mental health that was developed by Sigmund Freud) drives the plot forward, as the psychiatrist Martin Dysart succeeds in drawing out of Alan Strang a series of repressed memories. His intention is to achieve abreaction, which is the discharge of the emotional energy attached to a repressed idea. Theatrically, the past events in the plot of Equus are strikingly represented, diverging from analytical and expository dialogue; rather than related verbally, these memories are acted out in flashback.
By staging the past rather than revealing it through exposition (analysis usually being a process of verbalization), Shaffer takes great advantage of the visual power of the theatre. In
Reviewing the play in the Manchester Guardian, Michael Billington judgedEquus superior to Shaffer’s earlier work because in this play, ‘‘the intellectual argument and the poetic imagery are virtually indivisible.’’ While some critics have found considerable merit in the unity of the work, others argue that the real strength of Equus lies only in its theatricality. Henry Hewes commented in the Saturday Review that ‘‘the play’s statement is less impressive than is Shaffer’s skillful theatrical fabrication, which deftly finds layers of comic relief as he inexorably drills deeper into the hard rock of tragedy.’’ America’s Catherine Hughes similarly focused on the staging, arguing that ‘‘on the level of theatricality . . . Equus is stunning. . . . Although Shaffer’s philosophizing is too shallow, sometimes to the point of glibness, to be entirely convincing, one in the end forgives it in the wake of the play’s brilliantly rendered