One fun and little known fact about me is that when I was in secondary school, I was very into drama. There is little about my life these days that would indicate this, but my level of commitment at the time was fierce. I spent hours and hours a week rehearsing, learning lines and practising stage entrances. These performances weren't just confined to my school stage either. I performed nationally at numerous locations, ranging from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to the Globe. I was involved in improvisation, classical theatre, Shakespearian masterpieces, comedies, abstract miming and plays that were first performed in ancient Greece.
I was quite the little Thespian.
When I look back on this period of my life, one play, out of the near fifty I was a part of stands starkly out. This play set the tone for the majority of productions I would be involved in later and, on reflection, is probably one of the most bizarre things I have ever been involved in.
First, lets set the scene.
In year 9, I was thirteen years old. I had messy hair, was a foot shorter than I am now, and desperately needed braces. The last major school production had been the Wizard of Oz two years previous, in which I had been a Munchkin of the Lullaby League. The head of drama was not a fan of musicals, and the experience had left most people soured to the idea of doing one again. It was decided that we should do something new. Something......... different.
I was presented with a script for this:
Equus is a play about the reasons why a young man by the name of Allen has blinded horses at the stable where he works. The psychologist who interviews him slowly discovers that due to a lack of influence from the outside world, and some seriously confused ideas about sexuality, young Allen has created a religion with a horse at it's helm that he worships through highly charged semi-masturbatory self flagellation.
A year 9 production of Equus. You can't make this shit up.
Several of the older years were drafted in to play some of the more challenging roles. I was cast as the leads' mother, an overprotective religious crackpot who provides much of the ideology on which young Allen builds his sexy horse religion. With the cast prepared and a date set for performance, it was time to learn the lines.
I'm not entirely sure what my parents thought when I skipped home with a copy of this in my hand. I imagine its's how Linda Blaire's parents felt upon first reading the script for
The Excorcist.
All doubts aside though, I was allowed to continue and spent my time after school watching a screaming topless guy spank himself with a whip and making wire horse heads.
My mother still says it's the best play we ever did.
