Is Daniel Radcliffe's Stage Role Appropriate for Young Fans?

[Ivan Seeking]

Seventeen-year-old British actor Daniel Radcliffe, best known as the lovable boy wizard in the series of Harry Potter movies, is baring all on the London stage in a revival of Peter Shaffer’s controversial play “Equus.”

... “We as parents feel Daniel should not appear nude,” one mom posted on a Potter web site, reports Thisislondon.com. “Our 9-year-old son looks up to him as a role model. We are very disappointed and will avoid the future movies he makes.”

http://thetrack.bostonherald.com/moreTrack/view.bg?articleid=180111

In an effort to reassure his fans, Radcliffe promises to wave his magic wand.

 

[Moonbear]

It concerns me when it's the parents who seem unable to distinguish his character from who he really is. I suggest simply not taking their 9-year-old to see the play if this bothers them. And, yeah, like they won't take the kid to see future Harry Potter movies if the kid is that into them...I'd like to see them explain why he can't see the movie (sorry, kiddo, but the actor that plays Harry Potter took all his clothes off in public, so now you can't see the movie).

Do they think his career should just end when the books and movies run out?

 

[Kurdt]

Its not as if the act of nudity was a public offence either since it was deemed necessary by the author of the play to convey whatever message they were trying to convey. Plus one has to pay to see the production and if you know the play has nudity in it that offends you then don't pay to see it.

I just worry for a boy of that age with all his hormones raging that his act of public nudity doesn't take a turn for the worse.

 

[hypatia]

In an effort to reassure his fans, Radcliffe promises to wave his magic wand.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

OK. Harry potter is not real?

 

[Chi Meson]

Why are we not allowed to smack parents?

 

[Mk]

I just worry for a boy of that age with all his hormones raging that his act of public nudity doesn't take a turn for the worse.

Jeez! And it's a naked girl that is with him in that scene if I remember correctly! But it's such a huge production he's done it a million times probably.

 

[russ_watters]

Speaking of smacking parents, a few days ago there was one about a 7th grade health teacher who got relieved because he started the sex ed class by having kids draw genitalia on the blackboard. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-01-27-teacher_x.htm

At least not all the parents are that dense:

At least one parent said he did not believe the material was inappropriate.

"This is biology, it's anatomy, it's human sexuality," said Jon Klibonoff, who has a child at the school but not in the class. "They're in puberty. They're aware of it on one level or another."

 

[radou]

Think of it this way: if Radcliffe was a girl, this wouldn't be such a great deal, would it?

 

[Thrice]

http://thetrack.bostonherald.com/moreTrack/view.bg?articleid=180111

In an effort to reassure his fans, Radcliffe promises to wave his magic wand.

Thas wassup

 

[Mk]

Uhhhh... what?

 

[brewnog]

Sorry, I got lost when Mk started going on about huge productions.

 

[tehno]

Speaking of smacking parents, a few days ago there was one about a 7th grade health teacher who got relieved because he started the sex ed class by having kids draw genitalia on the blackboard. http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-01-27-teacher_x.htm

At least not all the parents are that dense:

Double standards in Western society again.Now,I'm going to digress a little by a rethorical question:
What has happened with known phrase "Make love ,not War?
Stays just a phrase ,and nothing else.
On TV ,in newspapers,magazines you can see every day explicite pictures of humans killing each other :Blood everywhere.But when it comes to a nudity or 'God forbid' explicit sex between two person that's just 'awful',don't show that to our kids.
But let's face the paradox logically :What' worse :The utter violence with deaths as outcome,or natural sexual activities?

 

[Kurdt]

I've never understood how sexuality could offend anyone. Surely its a natural process that can be discussed rationally by adults or portrayed in plays or any other similar medium without everyone going crazy because somebody is naked.

 

[Moonbear]

I've never understood how sexuality could offend anyone.

Especially parents. Surely they got over whatever their hang-ups about it were long enough to conceive the child they are afraid might discover it for themselves one day.

 

[whitay]

Especially parents. Surely they got over whatever their hang-ups about it were long enough to conceive the child they are afraid might discover it for themselves one day.

Welcome to sexual suppression by society.

Making babies is a secret. The parents don't want you to know.

And I'm sure this is the start of his nude scenes in movies.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

You see the problem is that the older we get, the less found we are of nudity; and for good reason!

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

You see the problem is that the older we get, the less found we are of nudity; and for good reason!

Speak for yourself

I've formed the impression that a lot of US citizens are a little prudish about nakedness, probably the puritan influences in most countries in Europe you'd practically have to have sex with a pool table to raise an eyebrow,

"Oh sex with a horse" ..."what sort of horse is it, pony? Or shire horse?"

"Don't know?" *shrug*

Think of it this way: if Radcliffe was a girl, this wouldn't be such a great deal, would it?

Er I think it probably would, but in an entirely different way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equus_(play )

Shaffer was inspired to write his play when he heard of a crime involving a teenage boy's apparently senseless mutilation of horses. He then set out to construct a fictional account of what might have caused the incident, without knowing any of the details of the crime. The play is posited as a kind of postmodern detective story.

As the play opens, 17-year-old Alan Strang is brought to a mental health facility for treatment by Dr Martin Dysart, a psychiatrist. Alan's crime: blinding six horses with a spike. The boy, who worked part-time in the stables where the attack occurred, would take a certain horse out for occasional night rides. Those jaunts functioned as the set piece for an elaborate ritual of exaltation constructed by his anguished psyche.

Delving into Alan's tormented mind causes Dysart to confront his own spiritual atrophy, the result of a modern consumer culture that tolerates only enervated conformity. Dysart reflects: "That boy has known a passion more ferocious than I have felt in any second of my life. And let me tell you something: I envy it. ... I watch [my wife]...night after night—a woman I haven't kissed in six years— and he stands in the dark for an hour, sucking the sweat off his god's hairy cheek!"

According to Randy Harrison, who starred in the play's latest American revival (2005): "The play's about so much, it's hard to talk about it... Equus is one of the most significant English-language plays of the past 30 years. Anybody who hasn't seen it or read it needs to, if they care at all about theater or literature."

Original Productions

The play was originally staged at the !National Theatre at the Old Vic in London in 1973. It was directed by John Dexter and starred Alec McCowen as psychiatrist Martin Dysart and Peter Firth as Alan Strang, the young patient. It was subsequently presented on Broadway at the Plymouth Theatre with Anthony Hopkins and Peter Firth.

Later, Tom Hulce played the role of Alan Strang, and Anthony Perkins replaced Hopkins as Martin Dysart. Perkins was briefly replaced by Richard Burton for the star's return to Broadway for a limited run. Perkins resumed the part when Burton's run ended. The play received a Tony Award for best play in 1975.

Equus was acclaimed not only for its dramatic craftmanship and the performances by the stars, but also for its brilliantly original staging. The horses were portrayed by actors in brown track suits, wearing a wire abstraction of a horse's head. The entire cast, including the actors playing the horses, remained seated on stage for the play's duration, watching the action along with the audience. Part of the audience was seated on the stage as well, in bleachers that looked out into the auditorium, creating the effect that the spectators surrounded the action.

In a more recent adaptation, actor Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe will be playing the young Strang, with his Potter co-star Richard Griffiths as Dysart, opening in London's West End on February 26, 2007

Film adaptation

Main article: Equus (film)

Shaffer adapted the play for a 1977 film staring Richard Burton, Peter Firth, Eileen Atkins, Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright, and Jenny Agutter, directed by Sidney Lumet.

Revivals

Massachusetts' Berkshire Theatre Festival revived Equus in the Summer of 2005, staged by Scott Schwartz, with Victor Slezak as Dr Martin Dysart and Randy Harrison as Alan Strang. (Roberta Maxwell, who originated the role of Jill, Alan's would-be girlfriend, in the original Broadway production in the 1970s, played a judge in this revival.)

Equus is to be restaged in 2007 with Harry Potter co-stars Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe in the leading roles. The play will be directed by Thea Sharrock, and it is to open in London in February 2007 at the Gielgud Theatre. The casting of Radcliffe, still associated with films intended for general audiences (i.e., Harry Potter), has caused some minor controversy, since the role of Alan Strang will require him to appear naked on stage. [1]

 

[verty]

Well I must say, and this is not on account of any nudity, it seems well worth missing. If being mentally ill is having passion, I'm glad and greatly thankful to be unpassionate.

 

[radou]

Er I think it probably would, but in an entirely different way.

Well, that's what I was talking about.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Well I must say, and this is not on account of any nudity, it seems well worth missing. If being mentally ill is having passion, I'm glad and greatly thankful to be unpassionate.

I think you've kind of missed the point of the play but that's your choice. The perpatrator isn't the focus of the play, the shrink is. It's not about the deranged subject but the realisation of what the psychoanalyst is missing: passion.

Well, that's what I was talking about.

Ah good just making sure

 

[Gza]

I've never understood how sexuality could offend anyone. Surely its a natural process that can be discussed rationally by adults or portrayed in plays or any other similar medium without everyone going crazy because somebody is naked.

This is all thanks to the influences of the Bible in influencing generations of people to equate most forms sexual activity with some sort of sin worthy of punishment. Why is it that these evangelical types are SO obsessed with people's personal business?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Why is it that these evangelical types are SO obsessed with people's personal business?

Evangelicalism is typified by an emphasis on evangelism, a personal experience of conversion, biblically oriented faith and a belief in the relevance of Christian faith to cultural issues

wiki

In brief, they believe it their duty to save YOUR soul.

 

[Artman]

Call the Ministry of Magic immediately and have everyone who sees the play's memory erased (and, of course, puncture and parts that may have become inflated.)

That should solve the problem.

Why do any parents assume kids will follow every aspect of a role model's life? I guess when the call comes for their kid to play a nude scene in a London theater, it would be time to put their foot down and tell them "no way". Until then, I don't imagine they have much to worry about.