The play that changed my life: ‘Equus led me to train as a psychotherapist'
In 1986, I was just coming up to 14 with no thoughts of such things. Until I found acting I had lived quite an isolated, secluded little life, but theatre suddenly gave me opportunities to try on different lives – a bit like Mr Benn, really. And I felt as if I could take on the world.
The drama department at my school was quite progressive and decided to put on Equus by Peter Shaffer, a deeply traumatic story about sexual fantasy. It is about the relationship between a psychiatrist, Dr Dysart, and a teenage boy, Alan Strang, and their wrestling over Alan's dangerous passion for horses and for God, which have become entangled in a way that leads him to acts of appalling violence.
I was cast as Alan and it was pretty extreme. I remember rehearsing a scene in which he goes deeply into the beauty of the horses and the pleasure he derives from them. There was a kind of explosion, a firework display in my mind. I remember just breaking down and sobbing uncontrollably.
But it left me wanting more theatre and I went on to drama school and ended up in the West End in roles including Jean Valjean in Les Misérables. I thought that would be my for ever. But in the end, after a stream of physical and psychological ill health, l felt quite ruptured by theatre. I needed to go and repair, to recover and heal.
Dysart questions what the difference is between a psychological breakdown and a spiritual emergency. That came to be a compelling reason for me to train as a psychotherapist. It was also a foundation of my wanting to challenge the conventional model of therapy. That model no longer serves us.
I think the play is really about what I call 'descent'. My book As the Kite Falls is about how to allow people to descend, as I did after being diagnosed with cancer expected to be terminal. Most of the time we are fixated on ascent. On betterment, improvement, advancing our lives. It is Dysart's conundrum that traditional therapy does not allow people to descend because there is a fear of what happens if we take that risk.
That's what my book is about: how we can help people go through these crises. My disease is incurable but I'm in remission still and I do have some agency. The problem with mantle cell lymphoma is that it has high chances of relapse even after a stem cell transplant. But the prognosis was different a few years ago. They would have said three to five years but the odds are better now. I have a chance to rewrite it rather than attempt to swerve it.
As a Kite Falls by Richard Tyler is published by Karnac.
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