Equus

Winner of the 1975 Tony Award for Best Play and named by the Drama League as one of the top 10 plays of the twentieth century, Equus is a powerful examination of hypocrisy, sexuality, and the nature of worship by Peter Shaffer. The drama revolves around a psychoanalyst’s struggle to understand 17-year-old Alan, a stable boy who is one of his patients and a young man who, for some seemingly inexplicable reason, has blinded six horses with a hoof pick. The analyst, Dysart, works to “normalize” the boy, while understanding that though he may make the boy safe for society, he will strip him of his unique form of worship and his sexual vitality, both of which are distinctly lacking in Dysart’s own personal life.