Bareback Scandal The play Equus was written by Peter Shaffer in 1973, and opened the same year. Since then it has been adapted for film, and has been revived for the stage. In 2007 it was reset with a famous British cast. It is interesting to compare the critical response of the original production and the revival. There aren’t very many reviews left of the original because it was 30 years ago, and they did not have as much media coverage back then. For the revival, however, there are a lot of reviews. The 1970s reviews primarily attention is on the content of the play itself, where as the media concerning the 2000s revival mainly focuses on Daniel Radcliffe. This later media attention concentrates less on the play, and more on the scandal…
The play “Equus” by Peter Shaffer and the short story “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka both demonstrate alienation in the two main characters. Alan Strang in “Equus” becomes isolated from society and his family because of an extreme passion for horses, while Gregor Samsa in “Metamorphosis” is a character who has inherently isolated himself his whole life and he somehow becomes more isolated when he turns into a bug overnight. Both Alan and Gregor go through their estrangement in strikingly similar…
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart born in 1756 is one of history’s greatest composers and became a protégé at a young age. When he died in 1791 he had already composed numerous classical pieces that are still considered masterpieces today. In 1979, Peter Shaffer performed his play Amadeus that he fashioned after Alexander Pushkin short play called Mozart and Salieri. The film version came out in the 1980’s. The film is an adaptation of Mozart life and all his struggles as a prodigy, and the man who people…
In Peter Shaffer’s Equus, the plot revolves around seventeen year-old Alan Strang’s obsession with horses, culminating in his blinding six horses in one night. Despite committing this terrible crime, Alan is not inherently a bad person; instead, he is the victim of social taboos surrounding religion and sexuality as enforced by his parents and social heterosexual expectations as represented by Jill. Furthermore, no one will hold these people and concepts accountable for their actions. This…
In Peter Shaffer’s Equus, the plot revolves around seventeen year-old Alan Strang’s obsession with horses, culminating in his blinding six horses in one night. Despite committing this terrible crime, Alan is not inherently a bad person; instead, he is the victim of social taboos surrounding religion and sexuality as enforced by his parents and social heterosexual expectations as represented by Jill. Furthermore, no one will hold these people and concepts accountable for their actions. This…
Hello Mr. Peters, After reading the “Note On The Play” as well as “Equus” itself, I believe that Equus is effective in creating a fictional world in which the crime could be portrayed in a way that the audience could both understand and strive to analyze. By itself, the news of a highly disturbed man blinding six horses is straightforward and dark. Individuals who hear about this crime wonder what motivated the criminal, but they usually attribute the act to the criminal’s mental state and…
In his play Equus, Peter Shaffer weaves a tapestry of myriad emotions and experiences interlaced with insinuating dark and light undertones The juxtaposition of ‘light’ and ‘dark’ (both literal and metaphorical), often captured by the lighting of the stage, typically serves to accentuate the mood of a scene or the stance of a character. This juxtaposition is redolent of a sense of balance between opposing forces that permeates the play. The lighting also serves to ultimately justify the actions…
3. What prompted the author to present the issue on what is normal and abnormal? Who is Peter Levin Shaffer? • Early Life: Peter Shaffer was born to Orthodox Jewish parents, Jack and Reka Shaffer, in Liverpool, England, on May 15, 1926, has a twin brother, Anthony. Another brother, Brian, was born in 1929. He was studying history and a scholarship at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. Before the careen in playwriting, Shaffer was a coal miner during World War II, held various odd jobs,…
Allusions are used to enhance the setting in the future utopia with negative uses of technology. The paragraph that has the most allusion said ““How many times in the last year has he opened this door and found Wonderland, Alice, the Mocking Turtle, or Aladdin and his Magical Lamp, or Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, or Dr.Dolittle, or the cow jumping over a very real-appearing moon-all the delightful contraceptions of make-believe world,” and “How often had he seen Pegasus flying in the sky ceiling or…
there eyewitness testimony? Where the documents written within living memory of the events? Do outside, unbiased, sources agree? Do the events relayed in the documents sound ridiculously untrue? And lastly, did the authors have anything to gain from lying? In this essay, I will go through these five criteria and prove that the Gospels are historically accurate. The first criterion to address is if there is eyewitness testimony. Bishop Papias, a man who lived during the apostolic era tells us the…