Day Two -- A Touching Tale of a Boy and His Horse

I kid. 

Well, except about the "touching."

It isn't often that a West End revival of a play written in the 1970s gets mainstream media attention in the U.S. 

But when the play stars Daniel Radcliffe and has a not insubstantial nude scene ... well then, that's a different story.  (Heck, I even recall it making the Welcome Screen on AOL.) 

So.  Equus.  A disturbing little play.  (Boy meets horse.  Boy loses horse...  I kid again.)  Must've been pretty darned revolutionary when it opened back in '73.  Centers around a 17-year-old young man who is undergoing psychiatric treatment because of a brutal crime he committed against some horses.  The play involves issues of religion and sex (and the intersection of the two -- and you're always treading on dangerous ground when you go there), not to mention the purposes the psychotherapy and what it is to be "cured" or "normal." 

And, yeah, the climax (shut up) of the play happens to take place when the boy is in the buff.

The media had a field day.  (Much discussion of "Harry Potter's wand.")  And what was very nearly overlooked in all the fuss about Daniel Radcliffe gettin' nekkid is the fact that Daniel Radcliffe is actually good.  At the acting, I mean.  (Shut up.)  He's very nearly scary good -- to be that young and that effective, and so clearly understand the difference between stage acting and film acting, and actually pull off a really good job at the former when he knows that, because of the latter, the whole world is going to be looking at him through a microscope.  (And binoculars, if you're one of his teenaged fangirls.)

And, just in case you thought I was one of those people who went to see Equus to check out Harry Potter's package, let me point out that, in fact, I was going to check out the actor playing the horse.  Seriously. 

Shut up.