SAXTONS RIVER — Main Street Arts has never tried presenting a play like Equus, an emotional and unconventional thriller that follows psychiatrist Martin Dysart as he attempts to treat Alan, a 17-year-old boy who has attacked and blinded six horses.
The play, written by Peter Shaffer, is famously known for its gut-wrenching portrayal of human experience and for how, in cohesion with this style, its scenes are often performed nude.
While there will be no nudity in the MSA production, the show carries the same essence of brutal honesty.
As Dysart the psychologist dives deeper into the young man's life, he begins to unravel the events that led to Alan's violent act and to discover the reason for his patient's tortured ideas of sexuality and religion.
Initially hoping to cure the boy, the psychiatrist slowly comes to realize the reality of the madness that society has constructed within Alan, and of the reality within himself.
Directed by David Stern, the MSA cast of 15 brings Equus to life. The play will kick off the second annual Great River Theatre Festival, which will take place in Saxtons River from June 28 to July 15.
The festival will feature numerous other shows, including Scenes from American Life, directed by John Hadden, and Puppet Crimes, directed by Sandglass Theater.
Workshops and social events will also take place throughout the festival.
In the zone of 'uncomfortable but safe'
Although this play is a first for the Main Street Arts stage, it isn't for the director. Having produced the show in 1990, Stern was compelled to come back to it again years later.
He found that there were themes that he had completely missed as a director in his 30s.
Stern commented on how a show of such powerful human emotion would resonate differently with every person.
“One night, this show might mean one thing, and the next night it might mean another,” he said. “How the roles play out, it makes it feel totally different.”
“And if you're a 20-year-old woman or a 58-year-old guy, it's going to mean something different,” he added. “We bring what we have experienced to it.”
A constant trailblazer, Stern finds that theater of this vulnerable - and, at times, uncomfortably candid - quality, is extremely important for personal growth.
“When we work on material like this, we dig into each other's lives and each other's areas of struggle as they inevitably surface when we try to bring a very difficult thing to life,” he said.
“People are asked to make themselves incredibly vulnerable and invariably people's personal difficulties with different parts of life and of themselves, become exposed.
“In a safe, wonderful way, we use the material to look at this. When you're in that zone of being uncomfortable but safe, that is the zone of proximal learning, that is where we grow.”
'A gift to be given'
The creative team of Equus has certainly brought something different to Main Street Arts. Stylized choreography and eroticized costuming of the six horses is designed to capture the conflicting world inside Alan's mind and to bring about a new understanding of the show. A reimagined stage, made completely out of wood, now rotates in the middle of the room.
“We've changed the whole space,” said Stern. “I want it as close as we can be to the audience. It's kind of like a boxing ring - it feels like a place of combat and a kind of ritual space. Life is such a wrestle, such a struggle in its way, and this stage feels like an arena of struggle.”
One of the Stern's goals, shared by Main Street Arts, is to continue widening the performing arts space's demographic by pulling more people into the arts, whether as performers or audience members.
With recent successes like Jesus Christ Superstar, which brought in actors from other companies and audience members from other states, Stern said that goal is being achieved.
This increasing unification of the arts in Vermont offers artists and audiences new forms of artistic expression. Stern stressed the importance of opening people up to the idea of experiencing their own vulnerabilities.
“Shows like Equus are absolutely intimate, absolutely personal events happening 8 feet away from your face. And that's potent stuff,” he said. “I am sure there will be people in tears on stage for real in the show, and that's a gift to be given, and not easy to watch.”
“But it's also riveting,” Stern said. “Most of the things that are a little uncomfortable are also hard to take your eyes off of.”