Reviews – Equus
15 November 2025“Masterful, inventive, imaginative production …
Jack Shanahan is riveting, offering a brave performance that requires him to perform naked for much of the second act…
Arran McKenna shines in the demanding role of the psychiatrist, Martin Dysart…
Sam Thomson… displays remarkable presence in the non-verbal role of the horse, Nugget, and his stablemates… it is the spectre of their presence which ultimately drives the play.”
– Bill Stephens, Canberra Critics Circle
“Central to the whole is Jack Shanahan’s excellent performance as the spikey Alan, an intense boy driven by a secret worship.
Lily Welling is luminous and sensible as Jill, the young stable worker who looks for a while as if she is someone who can lead him along a normal human path.
Anne Somes’ mature production handles the sexuality and nudity with sensitivity.
It’s not an easy play to experience but it’s very well worth a trip to the Hub to see it in a fine and thoughtful production.”
– Alanna Maclean, Canberra City News
Arran McKenna gives Dysart a sense of self-hating wit, hating his own pedantry and precision even as he keeps on applying it to the world around him, and Shanahan gives us a walled-off Strang, sarcastic and defensive but with a lot of rawness underneath which is revealed as we delve deeper. Sam Thompson as the lead horse, Nugget, has imposing presence enough to explain why he becomes an object of fascination and co-dependance to Alan, with a great stare across the audience.
(This) production… holds the audience compelled til the final blackout. “Equus” is a compelling drama that needs the full physical production of a company of performers tied close together with their audience and Free-Rain’s production does exactly that.
– Simon Tolhurst, That Guy Who Watches Canberra Theatre blog
The cast of Equus is an assembly of Canberra’s bravest, that audaciously bring to life this utter nightmare in psychological exploration of destinations incomprehensible.
Director Anne Somes has succeeded, with a triumphant vision that is determinable and impressive in its scope, presenting a simultaneously mythological, yet godless, work of drama that pulled from its crowd all the murmurs and whispers and left in its wake a foreboding silence that followed me long into the night.
The mood of the play is one of utter uniqueness; a cold, inhospitable place that wields an authority that commands audience focus. This mystical air is further cemented in quality by the impeccable movement direction of Amy Campbell, who ensures the cast, and their interactions with the impressively realised horses, are incredibly engaging from beginning to end.
Sam Thomson… is an impressive stage presence throughout the play as Nugget; the focal horse of Strang’s desire. Thomson imbues the performance with imposing, yet gracious physicality, to profound effect,
McKenna shows remarkable depth in bringing these inner struggles to the surface in a performance of remarkable dramatic gravitas. McKenna’s turn as Dysart is reason enough to secure a ticket for this show, and yet, it is Jack Shanahan’s Alan Strang that will have you glued to your seat and holding on for dear life. His performance is most likely the most haunting performance you’re likely to find in the Canberra theatre space this year; from the smallness of his eerily memorable gaze to the sheer aggression in which he practices his devotion to the almighty Equus is chilling to behold. Shanahan performs a majority of the second act nude, and it is in this act that the spiritual fiend within bursts forth in an utterly gobsmacking performance that is as horrific as it is impressive. Shanahan is an absolute revelation in what is, for this reviewer’s money, nothing less than the finest dramatic performance of the year.Equus is a play that will sit long with me after its doors close. With phenomenal realisation of its vision, a jackpot cast, and a group of creatives who all add in spades to the overall mood, it’s a spiritually bleak work of art rendered with great care and class. It is an adiamorphic, yet mystical melancholy that is not to be missed by those with the strength to experience its rawness.