Equus

Peter Shaffer (1926–2016) was one of Britain’s most distinguished and psychologically focused playwrights. He became one of the foremost voices in British theater during the second half of the 20th century. Shaffer was born in Liverpool in 1926. The son of Jewish parents, he was raised in London alongside his twin brother, Anthony, who also became a successful playwright. After completing his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, Peter Shaffer began working in a variety of jobs, including coal mining during World War II, publishing, and at the New York Public Library. He began his career as a playwright in the 1950s, with early successes like Five Finger Exercise (1958), which examined familial tension and class anxiety.

Shaffer’s early plays reflected the dominant naturalistic mode of postwar British drama, influenced by the Angry Young Men movement of playwrights like John Osborne and Arnold Wesker. These writers brought working-class characters and social criticism into the mainstream, rejecting the genteel drawing-room comedies that previously dominated British stages. However, Shaffer soon began to experiment with mythic structure, psychological inquiry, and stylized theatrical devices. This evolution set him apart from his contemporaries and aligned him more closely with continental influences, particularly the works of Bertolt Brecht and Antonin Artaud.