Murdering Divinities

Abstract

Of his best-known plays, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Equus and Amadeus, Peter Shaffer comments: ‘all three pieces share a common preoccupation with worship and man’s attempts to acquire or murder a special divinity’.¹ This vital thematic link between these dramas (manifested as well in several others) is the subject of this chapter. Here Shaffer’s dramatic and theatrical obsession with the idea of worship is examined from two central points of view: firstly, what ‘worship’ as a concept means to this playwright and to the protagonists he creates will be discussed; this emphasis feeds directly from the focus on alienation (its causes and effects) outlined in the previous chapter; secondly, Shaffer’s constant return to meditations on the nature of religion will be assessed, this involving a brief consideration of his use of myth. These emphases will then be applied to The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Equus and Amadeus, immensely popular plays in which gods in various guises are created, hunted, and ultimately destroyed.