Abstract
Five Finger Exercise and The Royal Hunt of the Sun signalled the arrival on the scene of a new, innovative voice in the theatre; Equus confirmed it. Shaffer’s Equus transmutes an appalling case of animal mutilation into a universal paradigm concerning the eternal struggle between individual rights and communal demands. At the same time, the playwright continues to clarify the underlying subject of all his serious dramas: man’s unending search for a dependable god who can lend order to the universe.
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Notes
See details in C. J. Gianakaris, ‘Drama into Film: The Shaffer Situation’, Modern Drama, XXVIII (Mar 1985) 87–97.
For commentary on the set see C. J. Gianakaris, ‘Theatre of the Mind in Miller, Osborne, and Shaffer’, Renascence, XXX (1977) 33–42.
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© 1992 C. J. Gianakaris
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Gianakaris, C.J. (1992). ‘Equus’ and the Mature Shaffer. In: Peter Schaffer. Modern Dramatists. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22046-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22046-5_5
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