Saturday May 8, 2010 and Sunday May 9, 2010 Time: 6:30 pm Venue: Main Theatre FTII Director: Manish Gandhi Art Director: Krishna Thakur Lighting: Ajay Yadav Sound: Gaurav Verma Photography: Balakrishna Movement Designer: Maithily Bhupatkar-Meghna Raveendra (Centre of Contemporary Dance, Pune) Publicity Design: Paranjay Jaiswal-Govind Raju Stage Manager: Anurag Jha Asso. Director: Nilan Ghosh Asst. Director: Prashanta Bora Characters: MARTIN DYSART, a psychiatrist Sudev Nair ALAN STRANG Manish Gandhi FRANK STRANG, his father Sushant Kandya DORA STRANG, his mother Shreyashi Mukherji HESTHER SALOMON, a magistrate Sayani Gupta JILL MASON Preeti Sharma HARRY DALTON, a stable owner Rahul Rawat A YOUNG HORSEMAN Tarun Wadhwa A NURSE Richa Gupta HORSES Anurag Jha, Paranjay Jaiswal, Nitesh Meena, Shankar, Srikumar, Hemant Pandey, Tarun Wadhwa

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Peter Shaffer, born in 1926 in Liverpool was educated at Cambridge University. He and his twinbrother Anthony Shaffer wrote together some novels, but for the play “Five Finger Exercise”, he got the Evening Standards Drama Award and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for the best foreign play. 1964 Shaffer wrote the drama “The Royal Hunt for the Sun”, about the Spanish destruction of the Inca civilization of Peru, which was also filmed in 1969. “Equus” was filmed by Sidney Lumet with Richard Burton as Martin Dysart. “Equus” was followed by “Amadeus” in 1979, that describes the conflict between Mozart and Salieri, and some other plays like “Lettice and Lovage”(1987) and “The Gift of the Gorgon” in 1992.

HISTORY OF THE PLAY
Shaffer based the play on an allegedly true story he was told by a friend about a young boy who blinded a table of horses. Shaffer never found out any details about the true events but he says he wrote Equus to “create a mental world in which the deed could be made comprehensible”. After premiering at the Old Vic theatre in London in 1973, the play went on to win the 1975 Tony Award and New York Drama Critic’s Circle Award for Best Play in the same year. Equus ran for more than one thousand performances in New York and is considered a modern classic. The combination of expressionistic theatrical elements (the highly stylized chorus of masked horses, the ‘boxing-ring’ set, the nudity) was considered ground-breaking over thirty years ago.

SYNOPSIS
Martin Dysart, a child psychiatrist in England, fantasizes about going to Greece and living a passionate life. When a disturbed teenager, Alan Strang, who has blinded six horses with a hoof pick is brought to him for therapy, Dysart both solves the mystery of the crime and learns about fervent passion and worship from the boy. Dysart works to "normalize" the boy but struggles over the compromise between ‘normalcy’ and worship and (sexual) vitality - both of which are missing in the doctor's own personal life. His reasoned, studied psychiatric techniques are countered by the Alan’s ecstatic and irrational state of mind. As Dysart begins to unravel the boy’s erratic behavior, he finds that his own rational beliefs have begun unraveling as well. Dysart helps Alan work through his obsession, in which he identifies his horse god Equus with the Christian Trinity, but his envy of Alan’s passion, forces him to consider the cost of socialization. He remarks, "when Equus leaves - if he leaves at all – it will be with your intestines in his teeth . . . I'll give him [Alan] the good Normal world . .. and give him Normal places for his ecstasy . . . Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created."

Director’s note –
To live and behave like Shaffer’s characters is more than a challenge, most people know that… I learnt it hands on! The moment we decided to stage EQUUS, I consciously endeavored to not make it a Theatrical Spectacle, but an exploration of the characters and therein lay the challenge. Months down the line I realized – that when I started this theatrical “equitation” I was not in sync with Shaffer’s vision as, in Dysart’s words, “…my educated, average head [was] held at the wrong angle”. The “theatrical devices” are quintessential to the spirit of the play and so are the characters. In the setting of the play and the treatment of the characters I have not followed Shaffer rigorously, but this is in no way a re-interpretation of Equus. The aim has been to be original within the framework of one of the greatest plays; to bite the “man-bit” and yet use the little “horse-power” that my creative faculties have. Equus depicts the state of mind of Alan Strang, the imaginative, emotionally-troubled stable boy who serves as the play’s protagonist. In relating his themes, Shaffer combines psychological realism with expressionistic theatrical techniques, grants ample scope to employ devices such as masks, mime, and dance. The ongoing dialogue between Alan and Dr. Martin Dysart, the boy’s analyst, illustrates Shaffer’s theme of contrary human impulses toward rationality and irrationality. Curing Alan, making the boy socially acceptable and more ‘‘normal,’’ Dysart frets, will at the same time squelch an important spark of passionate creativity in the youth.
The play is an investigation that offers more questions than answers – and these questions are what the audience leaves the auditorium with. Not catharsis or poetic justice but questions which have given me sleepless nights. These questions still bother me, answers I know not. Manish Gandhi

Associate Director’s note –
Let’s do it the way we always do it – google “Equus” in the virtual world – the search results are an eye opener and in a way our reason to stage (rather live) EQUUS. A naked Radcliffe or Nietzsche and Jung are the clichés and the decoys that the internet offers. What does EQUUS offer? In the “dreary place” where “The extremity is the point!” and everyone’s head is “held at a wrong angle” our notions of “normalcy” is challenged by a “loony” who has “blinded six horses with a metal spike”. As the investigation starts, we are dragged headlong into the “torture chamber” where our notions of “normalcy” is jarred, “Jesus” on “his way to calvary” is pitted against “Homeric Greece” and “Zeus”, “normal” life of embittered marital relationship is pitted against a boy “sucking the sweat off his god’s hairy cheek”. Most of us fail to find a “coherent explanation” of Equus because the “bit forbids us”. When Feste, the intelligent fool, in Twelfth Night urges the need of catechizing the society into normalcy – it shows an equal concern of the playwright – Shakespeare – to question the inherent hypocrisy and the integrity of the institution called “society”. Shaffer does it in his own way, the theatrical devices and the inexhaustible metaphor of the HORSE included, should Allan(s) be catechized? How are Allan(s) born? “What dark is this?” asks Dysart. The answer surely does not lie in this “Normal world”. This theatrical production unlike search engines sincerely strives to steer clear of sensationalizing the theatrical complexity and the intellectual jargons. Our aim is to sensitize the deep chasm between individuality and social norms and the attempt to live without “masks”. Nilan Ghosh

Acknowledgements:

Several people have made this journey possible for us. We would like to thank the following people for their support- both logistic and creative.

Director Sh. Pankaj Rag IAS
Sh. Kanwarjit Paintel
Sh. Digvijay Rohidas
Sh. Wajid Banedar
Sh. Shekhar Joshi
Sh. Nihar Vhattachary
Sh. Ashutosh R. Kawishwar

Ms. Deepti Khurana, Mr. Ranjan Rampal

The staff and students of FTII Pune

Notes:
1. Entry on first-come-first-serve basis. Late entries strictly prohibited.
2. This production is intended for mature audiences only.
3. The use of recording equipment of any kind is not permitted in the auditorium before, during or after the performance.
4. The approximate running time of EQUUS is 2 hours 15 minutes. There will be one intermission.