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What a magnificent evening this is. Director Ned Bennett, in a co-production with English Touring Theatre, revolutionises Peter Shaffer’s can-be-ponderous 1973 modern classic about a disturbed teenager and turns it into an intoxicating event that drips with physicality and theatricality.
Alan Strang (Ethan Kai) has blinded six horses with a metal spike and it’s up to world-weary psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Zubin Varla) to discover why.
Thence unfolds a psychological thriller both sensuous and disturbing as it interweaves repression, sexuality, religion and horses.
The increasing intensity and intimacy in the meetings between Strang and Dysart is mesmerising; as Alan breaks down, so too does Martin, desiccating in a loveless marriage. Kai, wild, and Varla, hunched, are an optimum pairing of opposites.
The playing space is a bare stage, surrounded by billowing curtains, onto which arrive occasional startling props.
The sinuous movement — a big shout-out to movement director Shelley Maxwell— is a wonder to behold; when the cast tramples impatiently as horses, it’s easy to imagine we can feel their panting breath on us.
Until March 23 (020 8534 0310, stratfordeast.com)
