A play by
Peter Shaffer who also wrote
Amadeus.
Synopsis:
A 17 year-old boy, Alan, is brought to a psychiatric
hospital because he has blinded several horses with a hoof
pick. A psychiatrist, Dysart, works to "normalize" the boy,
all the while feeling that though he makes the boy 'safe'
for society, he is taking away from him his worship and sexual vitality--both of which are missing in the doctor's
own personal life. He actually envies Alan the sexual
worship he has experienced.
In spite of his own hang-ups, though, the doctor does help
the boy work through his obsession, which identifies the
horse Equus with God. But the doctor comments that "when
Equus leaves--if he leaves at all--it will be with your
intestines in his teeth. . . . I'll give him (Alan) the
good Normal world . . . and give him Normal places for his
ecstasy. . . Passion, you see, can be destroyed by a
doctor. It cannot be created."