Equus – How did he manage that?

Over on The Horsey Set, I posted a review of Equus. What I didn’t cover is what inquiring minds want to know about the practicalities of staging.

How did the 19-year-old Daniel Radcliffe manage to remain “uninspired” during his simulated sex scene with the lovely Anna Camp’s character?

After all, Radcliffe is a teen-age boy, a walking hormone. How did he manage to remain impotent, live and in-the-buff, as the script demanded? Especially with an equally live and in-the-buff girl paying a lot of attention to him?

Maybe he used some kind of Method actor technique? Or some kind of a ninja-yogi-Jedi mind trick? (“These are not the droids you’re looking for … “)

But my friend and I detected a more practical technique.

The theater was very, very cold.

Right after intermission, we felt a distinct chill.  The kind of chill that tenses you up and makes you shiver. The shift was sudden. As if they’d cranked up the AC to refrigerator levels.

Plus, we were seated in the mezzanine, high above the stage, up where science says the warmer air should have risen. So, that tells me that the stage must have felt like a meat locker. Pardon the pun.

Not to take anything away from Radcliffe’s focus and talent as an actor, but the production took no chances by hedging their bets with science.

Problem solved.