“Richly rewarding ... a very fine and enthralling play.” – The New York Times
“Searing... the thrust of Shaffer’s play: that unfathomable wonders and terrors
exist inside our heads, and that there is a tragedy in our need to kill them.” – TimeOut London
“Dark and brooding... a very intimate experience... exploring the mysteries of religion, sexuality, mental illness and identity.” – Broadway World
“Inspired by real life events, Equus tells the story of Alan Strang, a teenage boy who blinded six horses with a metal spike, and the attempts of psychiatrist Martin Dysart to understand the reasons behind his horrific actions. The subtext of the play is homosexuality, self-expression, identity and our primal passions and how we manage them... it’s these prominent themes and the captivating characters and compelling story that allow the work to remain relevant for a 2019 audience.” – The Up Coming
“Exhilarating... a landmark homoerotic play.” – The Guardian
“Mr. Shaffer's play does an unusual thing. It asks why? Most plays tell us how. Equus
is a psychological inquiry into a crime, a journey into someone’s mind.
It is a kind of highbrow suspense story, a psychic and mythic thriller,
but also an essay in character and motive. It is the documentation of a
crime.” – The New York Times
“Peter Shaffer’s Gothic tale of midlife, mythology and the unconscious has lost very little of its haunting edge and vitality... The warring issues that Shaffer’s psychiatrist wrestles with – passion and propriety, organized religion and paganism, science and myth – seem even more relevant and disquieting today.” – Variety