The play has a new focus as well. In the '70s, the psychiatrist's struggle over the morality of correcting the unique worldview of this supposedly aberrant boy was seen as a critique of the psychiatric profession. For Rayne, a Brit born in Africa, this questioning of normalization has a more modern connection: the current "gentrification of society." "I've traveled a lot, and … I'm appalled at how you can go to Tel Aviv in Israel and you could be in Miami. It's unbelievable how American it is….You cannot go anywhere and escape McDonald's."
Shaffer is a playwright known for writing accessible plays about serious subjects, and Equus is, above all else, an engaging philosophical thriller. That's okay by Rayne. "As long as by the end of the evening, as well as providing two hours of entertainment and provocation, people can leave questioning … their own aspirations and desires in this very consumeristic society they're living in."
