Presented in their now-default style of stripped-back realism, a wide empty performance space fringed by chairs on which the performers sit when they’re not performing, Long Cloud Youth Theatre’s production of Peter Shaffer’s seminal work of implied horse shagging Equus is a success, but on rather interesting terms.
As always, the performances, especially those of the three performers playing the horses, are stellar. Long Cloud produces actors of a professional standard and, on the whole, most of these performances would not look unworthy on larger, more reputable stages than WPAC’s cavernous performance venue. Willem Wassenaar’s direction is, as a matter of course, amazing.
There is an interesting conflict demonstrated in Equus about Long Cloud’s dual roles as a teaching facility and as a performing company. The leads in Equus are played by the same actors who played the leading roles in many of their previous plays; I could not help but watch the supporting players and wish that, in the interests of the improvement of their skills, they’d get a bash at the showier roles.
Equus
Wri. Peter Shaffer
Dir. Willem Wassenaar
At WPAC