Equus

Drama

Jenny Agutter	Jill Mason
Harry Andrews	Harry Dalton
Eileen Atkins	Hesther Saloman
Colin Blakely	Frank Strang
Richard Burton	Martin Dysart
Peter Firth	Alan Strang
Elva Mai Hoover	Miss Raintree
Joan Plowright	Dora Strang
Kate Reid	Margaret Dysart
John Wyman	Horseman

Director	Sidney Lumet
Producer	Denis Holt; Elliott Kastner; Elliot Kastner; Lester Persky
Writer	Peter Shaffer

A film adaptation of the famous play by Peter Shaffer, Equus stars Richard Burton (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, 1984) as Martin Dysart, a psychiatrist who takes on an unusual case: a young stable boy (Peter Firth, The Hunt for Red October) who, in a frenzy, has blinded six horses. Their sessions reveal that the boy has a quasi-religious fetish for horses and he rides them in the dead of night, experiencing an ecstasy unlike anything Dysart has ever known. Dysart begins to question: Is the pursuit of normalcy worth the loss of individual passions? Equus features a lot of hokum--its therapy scenes are absurd crescendos of revelation and insights. But its central question has substance, the direction is energetic, and the performances are powerful; Burton, handsome and haggard, brings a complex self-loathing to his role. Also featuring Jenny Agutter (Logan's Run) and Joan Plowright (Enchanted April). --Bret Fetzer