Word: equus
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...came to Broadway and failed to conquer. Though a huge critical and commercial hit in London, this comic trilogy barely limped through a six-month New York City run. It was not difficult to figure out what had gone wrong: unlike such other recent imports as Peter Shaffer's Equus and Simon Gray's Otherwise Engaged, The Norman Conquests had been given an indifferent production. Miscast American actors clobbered the wit out of Ayckbourn's words. Now, through PBS's Great Performances series, The Norman Conquests has a second chance to make good in the U.S.?and this time...
...expensive beef. France has more than 1,000 boucheries hippophagiques (horse meat shops); some restaurants in Belgium and Switzerland specialize in horse meat. The taste for steak á la dobbin has not crossed the Channel to Britain, however, where a horse is just a horse, rather than a del-equus...
...Equus. At the Cheri Three, daily...
...LUMET'S FILM does not limit itself to playing out fascinating mind games. As might be expected from a movie based on a play bursting with totem-like symbols, Equus is studded with the type of rich imagery that will easily come to mind with the mere mention of the film's title. Many viewers of Equus will fasten onto the scene of the nude Strang riding a madly galloping steed, a union of man and beast thrown into relief by backgrounds that alternate between the darkest of nights and a blinding brilliance of light. But the segment that qualifies...
This graphic display of savagery is one of several similar scenes that have appalled viewers of Equus who prefer the tamer stage version of the work. An equally testing juncture shows a kneeling Strang in his room, a makeshift harness with reins attached to his head, beating his right thigh with a stick that passes for a riding crop, as his appalled father looks on. Ultimately, the treatment of these segments may certainly seem gratuitous, but Lumet did not aim at merely shocking his viewer. Rather, he tries to underscore the intensity of his protagonist's monomania...