Colombo Critic.com

Well, I’ll jump right to it, I’ve always considered Equus to be rather dull and tiresome. And a kid who has erotic fantasies about horses? Are we running out of mental illness and psychopaths that we would find that disturbing? What I’d really like to see is “Hannibal: The Musical!”.

Now there’s a piece of theater you could really sink your teeth into.
I’m not going to bother with a synopsis. If you really must know then read this one.

So, I was a little more pessimistic than usual about seeing this play. I assumed it would be boring. I knew it would be long and I knew I would be spending a lot of time sitting in a very uncomfortable seat. And the more hype I have to sit through before a play, the more critical I tend to become. And yes, just as I expected… on the surface Equus is a boring piece of theater. It’s just one guy talking incessantly for almost three hours about a kid with a horse fetish. Sure, there are other people on there, but they seldom can be considered anything more than a little garnish to the old man’s rant. It just goes on, and on, and on, and on and onandonandonandon…..

And I liked it. I thought it was great. This could have been a very excruciating ordeal, but the production pulled it off admirably. Rohan Ponniah’s interpretation of Dysart was natural and un-strained. And all the other components just fit right into Dysart’s narration with clockwork efficiency. It was like watching a very finely tuned machine chugging along. I half expected to see a German Midget with a baton scampering around onstage conducting the whole affair. It felt well rehearsed, but at the same time retained its soul. It was a very beautiful thing to watch.

I can’t really find anything wrong with this play. Oh, Hiran Abeyesekera was a little incomprehensible and shrill at times, Tracy Holsinger sounded a little American, and the horses moved as if they were drugged… but none of that really matters because the production as a whole just works and dwelling on the trivialities is just pointless. It’s like not buying a car because the indicator stalk is an inch too long.

You know what? I don’t really feel like reviewing this play more than I already have, which is not much anyway. It’s well put together, the acting is good to great, the whole thing flows nicely, is seldom boring and makes excellent use of everyone and everything it had at its disposal. And the lighting was fine and the stage dressing was very minimal and was used extremely well. Going on any further would just be silly when all I should be saying is “If you want to see how theater should be done, go and see this play”.

I should point out at this stage that there were no professional actors, no rotating casts, no amplification and I’m sure everyone involved was there because of their love of theater. In fact none of the excuses that people have put forward as to why we should just accept the poor state of Western theater in this country seems to hold true with this production. So, the next time someone whines about love of theater, or charity, or “this is not Broadway“… I’m just going to point at this production and say:

“Shut your incontinent monkey trap! This production did what you’ve said that we couldn’t do in this country and it did it with skill and grace using no more than was available to anyone else. Your whining has no substance anymore. If no other production is as good, it’s because they were too lazy, incompetant or just plain sucked and didn’t care and as theater patrons we should let them know that we do care!“

Now, can someone tell me where they hid the German midget?