Equus

Sometimes seeing theater in NYC is like watching history in the making.  Conversations take place years later where someone says "I saw Jeremy Irons in his first Broadway performance", blah, blah, blah.  I admit, there are many performances I have seen over the years where I can now say the same thing.  It isn't always about theater, it can also be about music or even art installations.  These are typical New York conversations.  So when it was announced the Daniel Radcliffe was coming to Broadway to play in Equus which played to rave reviews in London, I had to get tickets. 

The two main characters are played by Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths who I believe to be one of the best actors on the stage.  He is just terrific.  Equus is a play written by Peter Shaffer and was first performed in 1973.  After watching the play yesterday, the content must have been quite racy back then because it is certainly disturbing today.  It is a story of a psychiatrist who treats a young 17 year old boy who has a sexual perverse religious fascination with horses.  He blinds 6 horses one evening and ends up in a psychiatric institute where they can help the boy and unravel exactly what happened that evening.   A case with this much depth certainly sends reverberations through all the other characters involved which creates another level of intrigue throughout the play.

Except for the seats at this particular theater being the smallest I have ever sat in, I am glad I went to see the play.  The performances are quite good.  The content is certainly thought provoking and of course, 20 years from now when Daniel Radcliffe is a huge star, I can say, "I saw him perform his first play on Broadway…and naked!"