Near perfection. That is what the Irish Classical Theatre has achieved in their exciting new production of Peter Shaffer’s EQUUS. Shaffer’s poignant and often unsettling drama about a troubled teenager who commits an unspeakable act against horses can be difficult to process and to watch. The story relates how the teen is committed to a… Read more »
THE BASICS: EQUUS, the 1973 drama by Peter Shaffer presented by The Irish Classical Theatre Company, directed by David Oliver, stars Vincent O’Neill as the psychiatrist Martin Dysart, PJ Tighe as the troubled Alan Strang, with strong support from Margaret Massman, Greg Gjurich, Wendy Hall, Kelsey Mogensen et. al. (including “horses”). EQUUS runs through November… Read more »
Peter Shaffer’s “Equus” may be outdated psychiatrically but it remains a great bit of theater because of the story and its conflict. It’s a conflict between psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Vincent O’Neill) and disturbed young patient Alan Strang (PJ Tighe). Strang has been sent to his second-rate psychiatric hospital in Southern England by a local magistrate,… Read more »
All this Sex and Sensationalism is all right because it comes from a disturbed mind. And is given big intellectual saddlebags. So now Come to the Secret Pounding Copulations of the Centaurs! Yeeaaaaah!!! Here we are in a town in southern England, farm country, near the coast. At Rokesby Psychiatric Hospital, we are in the office… Read more »
One of my bigger regrets in my theatrical life was not seeing “Equus” on Broadway. Luckily for myself and all other Buffalo theatergoers, there is a Broadway caliber production being performed at Irish Classical Theater. Now those who regularly read my reviews (thanks if you do) know that I am not one to mince words…. Read more »
In 1985, two Dublin-born brothers, Vincent and Chris O’Neill, internationally acclaimed actors and former members of Ireland’s celebrated Abbey Theatre, found themselves in Buffalo, New York performing Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in the dining room of a local hotel. They were enthusiastically embraced by Western New York audiences and critics and, together with fellow Dubliners Josephine Hogan and the late Dr. James Warde, formed the Irish Classical Theatre Company. Performing on various rented stages until a permanent home was established at the Calumet Arts Café, ICTC became the fastest growing theatre in the region and led to the building of its new home, The Andrews Theatre, which opened its doors in January of 1999 in Buffalo’s Theatre District.
