Word: dysart
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When the local authorities hand Alan (played by Andrew Sullivan) over to Dysart (Chad Raphael) the doctor expects only the "usual unusual". And indeed, at first glance, the facts of the boy's life appear mundane. Sifting through his personal history, Dysart learns that Alan's mother, a religous woman, used to read the Bible to him before he went to bed. The fixation with horses ostensibly stems from an incident on the beach when Alan was six years old: a man on a horse let him ride the animal for a while, an experience he later describes to Dysart...
...like some puzzling psychological axiom, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts and Dysart cannot account for the difference. It can only be testimony to the dark powers of the mind that, somehow, through the mixing of these impressions and influences there arises the imaginary Equus, part god, part object of desire...
...Equus is a jealous god. After a girl who works with Alan at the stables tries to seduce him one night he is over whelmed with feelings of guilt for his spiritual and physical infidelity. The inner torment drives him into the blinding rage that ultimately lands him in Dysart's office...
...treatment progresses, Dysart's misgivings about his mission increase. He does not relish the task of retrieving Alan from the fictitious temple of Equus and restoring him to the antiseptic world of normalcy. And it is more than just "professional menopause" from which Dysart suffers. Behind Alan's pain he sees a passion that is absent from his own life. The choice facing Dysart is whether to leave Alan in his own vivid albeit torturing world, or to send him on his way into a society bleached of real emotions...
...ONLY here, on the role of Martin Dysart, that the Leverett House production stumbles. Chad Raphael's performance begins at a high pitch, revealing Dysart's inner conflict early and thus leaving little room for its development. But this approach eliminates the dramatic tension inherent in the script. Ideally, what should appear at first as Dysart's doubts about the usefulness of psychiatry should only later evolve into a professional and personal crisis...