Equus

by Peter Shaffer

seen at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Guildford on 9 May 2019

Ned Bennett directs Ethan Kai as teenager Alan Strang and Zubin Varla as psychologist Martin Dysart in this English Touring Theatre revival of the celebrated play from 1973 examining the motivations prompting a teenager to blind six horse in a stable where he worked at weekends (based on a real case, but not a documentary reconstruction of it).

Shaffer uses the brutal details of the story to explore notions of normality, religious fervour, sexual repression and the role of psychiatry in the modern world. While the revelations of Alan's state of mind provide spectacular drama, the long introspective speeches of the psychologist who is asked by the magistrate Hesther Salomon (Ruth Lass) to interview the boy form the crux of Shaffer's critique - Dysart is disillusioned with his personal life and uneasily aware of the deadening effect of psychological intervention on vulnerable people. He proceeds to encourage Alan to act out the events of his attack on the horses and o reveal 'all of the truth' of his thoughts, even as he is aware that it will puncture his religious obsessions and replace them with - nothing.

An Octoroon

by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 24 June 2017

Ned Bennett directs a cast of eight in this new play freely adapted and commenting on Dion Boucicault's 1859 play The Octoroon, a melodramatic shocker purporting to address the slave question by following the fortunes of an octoroon (one-eighth negro) who nobly forswears her love for the newly arrived inheritor of the plantation on which she has been brought up.

In this version the African-American playwright BJJ (Ken Nwosu) opens proceedings with a monologue about his position on the New York drama scene and his attempt to stage his adaptation with limited resources. This entails him 'whiting up' to play the new master George and the villain M'Closkey, while a white actor (Alistair Toovey) has to 'black up' to play various negro males. The playwright Boucicault (Kevin Trainor) in turn 'reds up' to play a native American, and later as an auctioneer insouciantly announces that he has been sunburnt while carrying out his duties. The female characters (Vivian Oparah, Emmanuella Cole, Cassie Clare, Celeste Dodwell and Iola Evans) are not required to disguise their skin colour.