Peter Shaffer’s play Equus is a journey into the mind of 17-year-old
Alan Strang and his religious obsession with horses. More importantly,
Alan’s obsession stems from a conflicted religious background complicated
by rising sexual feelings. Alan’s relationship with religion and
sexuality becomes twisted, and his form of worship morphs from awe and
fear of God into awe and fear of a horse spirit named Equus. Equus is
both a source of freedom and torment for Alan. As Alan gets deeper into
his passion for worshiping Equus, he departs from normalcy. However, will
“curing” Alan of his obsession be worthwhile when to do so, Dysart must
strip Alan of the passion Dysart feels jealous of? Equus is a play that
forces one to confront ideas about worship, passion and normalcy.

First, Equus is a critique of Christianity. Director Terry Converse
says, “Christianity is to blame for what happened to Alan. That’s a harsh
message.” Converse explains that Shaffer’s message in Equus is that a
Christian culture is detrimental to one’s being for not acknowledging the
sexual side of human nature. Shaffer wants to show that religion and
sexuality are linked by ecstasy, and by denying this fact, religion fails
to encompass one’s full sense of self.

In Act I, Shaffer explains how Alan comes to worship Equus. Through
talks with Dysart, the audience learns Alan comes from an overprotective
home where his Christian mother and atheist father disagree about how to
raise Alan. His mother plants the seeds of religion in his head and also
gives him the sex talk. As Alan grows up, his mother’s words mix with
his entrance into puberty. Alan switches from being fascinated with a
picture of Jesus to a picture of a horse. The end of Act I is the climax
of the intertwinement of religion with sexuality, which Alan manifests in
Equus. Equus is now the god that rules Alan. Alan tells Dysart that
Equus says, like Jesus, “’I see you, I will save you.’” (66). Alan calls
Equus’ stable his temple, when Alan feeds him a sugar cube, its Equus’
Last Supper. In this scene, Shaffer uses lots of double entendre when
Alan rides Equus. Like he’s calling to both god and lover, Alan says,
“Feel me on you! On you!…I want to be in you!…Equus, I love you!…One
person! One person! One person! One person!” (74) The final burst of
religious and sexual ecstasy Alan feels in this scene comes from the word
that ends Act I: “Amen.”

Some characters in Equus, however, are without religious figures to
worship. In the place of a religious figure, they turn to substitutions.
Specifically, Alan describes the skin flick viewers as “a congregation.”
Alan’s father continuously strives for self-improvement. As an atheist
without a god to worship, does his father worship himself in a sense?
Shaffer makes it clear that the need for worship is strong, but worship
can be just as detrimental as fulfilling.

With Alan’s twisted sense of worship established, Shaffer can tackle the
themes of passion and normalcy in Act II. Act II is the deconstruction
of Alan’s worship. Shaffer wants the audience to think about whether
Dysart should “cure” Alan because any cure would strip Alan of his
passion for Equus, regardless that his passion had a destructive outcome.
Should Dysart return Alan to normal, if normal in this case means being
devoid of passion? Shaffer uses Dysart’s struggle in his professional
life as a platform to delve into this topic.
When Alan comes to him, Dysart is going through a crisis of his own
because he feels he lacks passion. Dysart’s dream about dissecting
children has him worried that though he is skilled at his job, does he
really help children return to whatever normal is, or does he kill their
souls? Dysart says, “The Normal is the good smile in a child’s eyes- all
right. It is also the dead stare of a million adults. It both sustains
and kills- like a god.” (65) During Dysart’s bout of “professional
menopause,” he becomes increasingly worried that he shouldn’t cure Alan
because it would signal the end of Alan’s passion. Dysart confesses to
Hesther, “…that boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have ever
felt in any second of my life. And let me tell you something: I envy
it.” (82) Can Dysart in good conscience rid Alan of his passion when
Dysart yearns for such a passion himself? Shaffer sets up an ironic
situation. Does a return to normalcy come at the cost of being devoid of
passion? Shaffer has Dysart believe so, because Dysart says removing
passion now in Alan would remove it forever: “Passion, you see, can be
destroyed by a doctor. It cannot be created.” (108)

The themes of worship, passion and normalcy are linked by Shaffer in
Equus in order to make the audience question the foundations of society.
In this society, is Christianity the best viewpoint from which to conduct
one’s life experience? Is any passion worth fighting for, even when
passion can be destructive? Is it good to be what society considers
normal? Alan shows the audience how one can be a devoted worshiper
though self-injuring. Dysart reminds the audience that without passion,
one is hollow. Equus is both loving and vengeful, real and unreal,
perhaps symbolic of God. Equus is a testament that worship, passion, and
normalcy can be as frightening as they are enlightening. Alan’s
relationship with these three themes turns out to be more shocking than
blinding six horses.