March 1 (Bloomberg) -- ``Times change,'' we're told early in the West End revival of ``Equus,'' and that is certainly true of Peter Shaffer's 1973 play about a deranged stable boy who blinds horses in a frenzy.

While audiences will flock to see ``Harry Potter'' screen star Daniel Radcliffe test his mettle on stage, they're likely to come away unmoved by a once-seminal drama that hasn't stood the test of time.

In the 1970s, ``Equus'' defined a generation, and its collision of doctor and patient against a psychosexual backdrop stirred debate long after the curtain came down on a Tony-winning Broadway run. Today, the more pertinent question will be whether Radcliffe, best known for his portrayal of J.K. Rowling's bespectacled boy wizard, can deliver on stage.

The surprising answer is yes, he does. In fact, the 17-year- old Radcliffe is more convincing than his chosen vehicle.

Even in its first incarnation, ``Equus'' seemed a holdover from the 1960s fashion of preferring the crazy to the sane. Irrational impulses, the theory went, were the only real ones; normalcy was the province of the hopelessly bourgeois.

Equine Passion

In the argot of ``Equus,'' to live a fully imagined life was to gallop. Teenage stable boy Alan Strang, unfortunately, gallops into the realm of psychosis, through an equine passion that leads him to blind six horses in a sudden fit.

That incident brings Strang (Radcliffe) to the attention of Martin Dysart (Richard Griffiths), an overworked psychiatrist in a provincial hospital. He's the kind of self-disparaging practitioner for whom the phrase, ``physician, heal thyself,'' could well have been invented.

And so Shaffer's drama unfolds, the curer slowly revealed to be the one in need of cure. While Strang has been lancing horses' eyes, the psychiatrist thinks of himself standing ``in the dark with a pick in my hands.'' Dysart becomes envious of his young charge who, however grievous, has at least experienced a passion the depths of which the unhappily married, sexless doctor will never know.

I saw the original Broadway production twice and recall vividly the poleaxing impact it had on me as an impressionable teenager. With Richard Burton center stage, I couldn't help be transfixed by the sheer theatricality of a production from the late John Dexter demanding that you watch in awe and save your questions for later.

Beach Encounter

That's no longer the case, and not merely because psychoanalytic attitudes have moved on. Both acts of the play achieve an, uh, climax in which Strang relives crucial moments, including an orgasmic encounter with a horse on a beach described in language bordering on soft-core pornography.

Later, the play finds Strang enacting for Dysart's benefit the awful deed he perpetrated one evening following an abortive sexual episode with his comely co-worker, Jill (a charming performance from Joanna Christie). John Napier's arena-like set is ringed with skeletal horses' heads that glimmer and glisten like illuminated skulls in David Hersey's dramatic lighting.

Then a naked Strang leaps into action in a Dionysiac frenzy, as the lights go out and the performers wearing those heads buckle under the assault. Shaffer's implication: Something fundamental is being extinguished in an adolescent headed for a blandly suburban existence.

The play, now more than ever, needs a galvanic pair of leading men to blind us to its dubious central thesis. While Burton's self-loathing Dysart energized the text with fury, Griffiths is an entirely different sort of actor, at his best when his beaming countenance is seen to couch reserves of pain.

That's what set Griffiths apart in his Tony-winning performance in Alan Bennett's ``The History Boys.'' But he's not forceful enough here, vocally or physically, to drive a play full of the faux-operatic soliloquies.

Sullen Daniel

The acting burden thereby falls to Radcliffe, whose sheer commitment makes up for what he lacks in vocal range. Looking younger than his years, he impresses as a sullen, sulky boy adrift in a family ruled over by an atheistic scold of a father (Jonathan Cullen) and a Bible-thumping mother (Gabrielle Reidy in the show's single best performance).

Most important for director Thea Sharrock's staging, her young star is willing to bare himself emotionally as well as physically. The brouhaha over Radcliffe's extended nude scene is nothing compared to the emotional savagery that any actor in this role must nightly unleash.

Is it worth it in the end? I doubt it in terms of a play that no longer possesses the attack it once had. Still, if Harry Potter wanted to show the world there's life after Hogwarts, he couldn't have found a better vehicle with which to shed not just his clothes but all preconceptions, as well.

``Equus'' is booking for the moment through June 9 at the Gielgud Theatre. For more information, go to http://www.equustheplay.com or call +44-870-950-0915.

(Matt Wolf is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this review: Matt Wolf at culvul@aol.com.

Last Updated: March 1, 2007 10:43 EST