My Equus Journey, Part 2
Just an FYI before we get started. The reason I call redhot_witch Deb and browneydweasley the doctor is because Deb has her name in her LJ profile and the doctor does not.
It is funny when you come face-to-face with something you have only seen it pictures. I don’t know what I expected. I guess I thought the theater would be levitating off the ground; there would be trumpet blasts and choirs of angels. But it was just an ordinary theater. Okay, there was a tremendous Equus sign at the top that made my thighs quiver a little, but otherwise nothing very impressive.
We get inside, buy $4.00 bottles of water, visit the loo and make our way to our seats, which are dead center and fittingly in Row O. Zippy sits on one side of me, the doctor on the other side and Deb next to the doctor. The lights go down and the doctor (henceforth doc because I am lazy) grabs my hand and tells me to pay close attention.
Then suddenly, HE is there. Shirtless. In jeans. And facial stubble. For real. I mean for real, for real! I couldn’t help but remember about 4 years ago when there was a Shirtless!Dan photo manip circulating on the net that we all squeed over. Truth be told, we didn’t squee because we didn’t have that word yet. We drooled. Rivers of it!
My very first impression is that he has filled out a bit from the first pictures we saw of Equus in London. I imagine that is because he is a man of 19 and no longer a manchild of 17. I am hoping that it isn’t what he is eating in the US. We are a rather squishy people as a whole and while his 19-year-old metabolism is in perfect working order and his body is quite lovely, bad habits now can ruin his physique later on. I have high hopes that he will return to Broadway often and we need to keep him fit. But I digress. The bottom line: I was mesmerized.
*Grabs script to refresh memory. Mick Jagger is right. It IS a drag getting old. *
Richard Griffiths appears on stage, looking so much better than in OOTP. His stage presence was awesome and he drew me right in. Then, Kate Mulgrew enters looking fantastic. Perhaps it was because she was my second favorite Star Fleet captain (Picard being first. Make it so. Really. Please. Make it so with me!), but I think I would have preferred it if she just had used her normal voice rather than a British accent. I know, it is a British play, but there was something just a little off about it.
And suddenly, there is Dan again. Blue shirt, jeans and an eerily accurate blank look. I’ve stared into a face with a look like that on more than one occasion. I don’t mention it to my companions at the time, but it was very chilling for me. It was a perfectly executed scene, but I wish he had sung the Doublemint jingle from the original script. See, I am so old that I remember those commercials from the 1970s.
Dan tells the nurse to ‘Fuck Off’ and the audience giggles. That may very well be the most surprising thing of all about the play. There were so many times that we laughed out loud. I wasn’t expecting that. I will let you know each time I laughed.
I just noticed that I am using the actors’ names instead of the characters. Sorry about that but it is the way my brain is processing this at the moment…
Dan is pretty much always on stage for the whole play. Sometimes lying down with his back to you, or sitting off to the side. I found myself watching him in those moments and committing every movement to memory.
Onward: Richard and Kate discuss the progress made so far with the patient. As they are talking, Richard is also playing out a scene with Dan who really does have psychotic down. As a child, I had a mentally ill relative that we would visit on psych wards in the 1970s. As an adult, I was married to an alcoholic whom I suspect was self medicating a psychosis so this is an area that I have some expertise in. I wonder to myself if Dan did any field research for the role.
The scene ends with Richard telling us he is going to visit the patient’s parents.
I think I will leave it off here for now. I was able to make 2 entries today because I didn’t have to work. But, back to the Muggle job tomorrow so the next piece may take a few days to complete. To be continued…