play

“For Want of a Horse,” a play by Olivia Dufault receiving its world premiere in an Echo Theater Company production at Atwater Village Theatre, wants to have a rational conversation about a taboo topic that can provoke instant outrage.

The subject is zoophilia, not to be confused with bestiality, though for many of us it will be a distinction without much of a difference.

Calvin (Joey Stromberg), a good-looking, mild-mannered married accountant, has harbored a secret for much of his life. He has a thing for horses. His erotic interest began at an early age, and all his efforts to lead a normal life have left him depressed and contemplating suicide.

His wife, Bonnie (Jenny Soo), is a permissive kindergarten teacher who’s having difficulty restraining a girl in her class who has discovered the joys of masturbation. Worried about her husband, she discovers through his browsing history that he’s once again visiting strange animal sites.

She suggests he keep a horse, explaining that she doesn’t want to end up a widow or divorcée. Calvin is taken aback by her generosity but has come to recognize that his preference is more than a kink. It’s part of his identity — and maybe the only part that makes his life seem worth living.

Joey Stromberg and Jenny Soo in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.

(Cooper Bates)

A horse named Q-Tip (Griffin Kelly) enters the couple’s lives. A stable is secured, and the mare, who senses that something strange is going on, is indulged with apples and caresses.

Kelly, a statuesque presence in a dress, harness and boots, brings the horse to life with wild, unpredictable movements. The sheer size of the animal poses a threat to humans. One kick, as Q-Tip herself explains in one of her thought-bubble monologues, is capable of penetrating a steel wall. But controlling an animal’s food supply is an effective way of winning over its trust.

Calvin has found support in the online zoophilia community. PJ (Steven Culp), a man whose current inamorata is a bichon frise, is considering moving to a country where zoophilia isn’t illegal. He’s tired of the shame and the secrecy. He’s proud of his attachment to pooch, even if his thing for dogs has cost him contact with his daughter and ex-wife.

Dufault doesn’t shy away from sexual details. For PJ, intimacy depends on peanut butter. Calvin describes the physical signals that reveal Q-Tip’s erotic satisfaction. The play occasionally descends into sitcom humor. (PJ says he’s considering creating a human-dog dating app called Rin Tin Tinder.) But mostly the subdued tone steers clear of sensationalism.

The production, directed by Elana Luo, is scrupulously well-acted by the four-person cast. Stromberg makes Calvin seem not only reasonable but surprisingly sensitive. Soo’s Bonnie sweetly embodies the excesses of a kind of progressive piety. As PJ, Culp gruffly embraces his role as the play’s polemical fire-starter. And Kelly’s Q-Tip, in the production’s most physically demanding performance, straddles the human-animal divide with theatrical aplomb.

Steven Culp, left, and Joey Stromberg in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.

(Cooper Bates)

The open-mindedness that Dufault, a trans playwright, brings to the play creates some dramatic slack. Possibly the same fear of making value judgments that has inhibited Bonnie from imposing common-sense discipline in her classroom has robbed “For Want of a Horse” of a propulsive point of view.

The play moves monotonously between Calvin and Bonnie’s bedroom and the stable. Scenic designer Alex Mollo has worked out an efficient way of shifting between these realms by employing the same set of wooden trunks. But the argument of the play doesn’t so much build as elapse.

Time takes its toll, and Calvin eventually has to make a decision. But the character who interested me most was Bonnie, whose reality is only glimpsed. The play tacitly uses her husband’s threat of suicide as a trump card. Zoophilia isn’t merely a fetish for Calvin but a nonnegotiable part of his identity.

This questionable assumption can be psychologically scrutinized not only from Calvin’s point of view but also from his wife’s. The play wants to have an intelligent debate, but it doesn’t want to interrogate certain political positions too skeptically.

At one point, Bonnie objects when Calvin compares his situation to that of homosexuality, but the conversation ends there. The reality is that the right wing has been making a similar claim, arguing that same-sex marriage opens the door to bestiality, polygamy and incest. “For Want of a Horse” inadvertently lends legitimacy to this line of reasoning.

Griffin Kelly in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.

(Cooper Bates)

Not that extremist positions should be off limits, but they ought to be more rigorously addressed. Similarly, Bonnie’s concern about the issue of consent — how can a horse say yes to intercourse with a human — is introduced only to be dismissed in a shrug of mild-mannered bothsidesism.

While watching “For Want of a Horse,” I recalled a program on PBS called “My Wild Affair” that wasn’t about zoophilia but about the problematic nature of human bonds with untamed animals. Relationships with a seal, an elephant and a rhino, for example — obsessive, protective, loving friendships — all seemed to end if not in outright tragedy, then in shattering heartbreak.

Q-Tip is rightfully given the play’s last word, and Kelly, an actor (HBO’s “The Book of Queer”), writer and comedian, is the production’s driving force. We can never know what’s inside this mare’s mind because Q-Tip’s brain has evolved so differently from our own. Kelly plays the anthropomorphic game while retaining some of the inscrutability of a four-legged creature.

It is through language that we, as humans, traverse the chasm separating us from one another. That’s not possible with animals, even with our closest domestic companions. (Try explaining a necessary medical procedure to a cat.)

“For Want of a Horse” sets out to speak about the unspeakable, but its construction may be too tame for such a wild subject.

Match of the Day pundit Danny Murphy analyses how Liverpool’s performance “got better” from a “creative” and “footballing aspect” as The Reds secured a 2-1 victory at Everton in the Merseyside Derby.

MATCH REPORT: Everton 1-2 Liverpool

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DENVER — Different opponent. Same result.

In each of the last four seasons, the Kings have opened the Stanley Cup playoffs against the Edmonton Oilers. They lost each time.

So on Sunday the Kings tried a different route, opening against the Colorado Avalanche.

They lost, 2-1.

The goals came from Artturi Lehkonen late in the second period and Logan O’Connor early in the third. The Kings made a game of it late, pulling goaltender Anton Fosberg with 2:57 to play and getting a power-play goal from Artemi Panarin 35 seconds later. But that was as close as they would get.

Maybe the Kings should have been careful what they wished for. Because while the Avalanche aren’t the Oilers, they’re better — much better — than any of the recent Edmonton teams.

This season they won the Presidents’ Trophy, the prize that goes to the team with the best regular-season record in the league, and they earned it by scoring the most goals and giving up the fewest in the NHL. They also had the best home record in the Western Conference and the best road record in the league.

And they started quickly Sunday, putting four shots on goal in the first four minutes. But Forsberg was spectacular, making 28 saves to keep the Kings in the game.

Colorado thought it had beaten him less than seven minutes into the second period when O’Connor found the back of the net from the right circle but the goal was waved off by a goalie interference call on Jack Drury, who tumbled into the crease as O’Connor was releasing his shot. The Avalanche questioned the call, claiming Kings defender Drew Doughty had pushed Drury from behind, but they lost the challenge.

There was no doubt about Colorado’s next goal, which came 4:31 before the second intermission when Lehkonen, defended tightly by Doughty, was able to reach out his stick and sweep in the rebound of Nathan MacKinnon‘s shot from the right boards.

The Avalanche doubled their advantage 5:50 into the third period when Joel Edmundson lost the puck in the Kings’ zone, allowing O’Connor to collect it and race defenseman Cody Ceci to the front of the net before beating Forsberg cleanly. Drury got an assist on the play.

The game, which had been physical all afternoon, turned chippy after that, giving the Kings a power play they took advantage to halve Colorado’s lead. But the Avalanche then closed out the game to a 1-0 lead in the series.

The best-of-seven playoff resumes Tuesday night in Denver before moving to the Crypto.com Arena on Thursday.

England’s Lionesses are no strangers to making history.

The past decade has been rich in landmark moments; a first tournament medal, a first major trophy, and a first title defence – on foreign soil to boot.

When Sarina Wiegman’s side play Iceland in Reykjavik on Saturday (17:30 BST) they will reach another milestone – the 500th fixture for England’s senior women’s team.

The game is important for securing qualification for next year’s World Cup in Brazil, with England keen to win more silverware in the famous white shirt.

But regardless of the result, the match will be etched in history as a reminder of how far the English women’s game has come.

In 1921, the Football Association (FA) banned women’s football, considering the game “most unsuitable for females”, external.

The decision consigned women’s football to park pitches and small venues for half a century before the decision was overturned in 1971.

To mark 500 not out, BBC Sport takes a look at 11 defining moments in the history of England’s women.

Seven-time winner Ronnie O’Sullivan will begin his bid for a record-breaking eighth World Snooker Championship title with a match against China’s debutant He Guoqiang at the Crucible.

O’Sullivan, 50, will start his first-round tie at the Sheffield theatre on Tuesday and conclude the match on Wednesday.

Sixteen players came through qualifying this week at the English Institute of Sport and will join the world’s top 16 ranked players at the tournament.

He, ranked 47th in the world, qualified for the Crucible for the first time with a win over England’s Jack Lisowski on Wednesday.

Zhao Xintong became the first Chinese player to clinch the world title when he won the 2025 event and will be involved in the first session of the tournament on Saturday (10:00 BST).

He will face England’s Liam Highfield, who advanced through four qualifying rounds.

The draw was made on BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast on Thursday.

Elsewhere, world number one Judd Trump will take on Gary Wilson and Masters champion Kyren Wilson will be up against 19-year-old debutant Stan Moody.

Four-time champion John Higgins will take on two-time runner-up Ali Carter, while Mark Selby, also with four Crucible titles, faces 2024 runner-up Jak Jones.

O’Sullivan and Stephen Hendry both have the most world titles in the modern era with seven apiece, with O’Sullivan winning his first one 25 years ago, in 2001.

The 17-day competition begins on Saturday, with the final starting on Sunday, 3 May and concluding the next day – with full coverage of the tournament live on the BBC.

The Crucible has staged the World Championship yearly since 1977 and last month it was announced it would remain there until 2045, with the venue set to be redeveloped to add up to 500 additional seats.

NEW YORK — José Caballero laced a two-run double in the bottom of the ninth inning that gave the New York Yankees a 5-4 victory over the Angels, moments after the Angels botched an infield popup in a costly misplay Wednesday night.

Aaron Judge hit his third homer of the series and Trent Grisham had a two-run single for the Yankees, who won for only the second time in eight games after an 8-2 start.

Mike Trout hit his fourth homer in three games, putting the Angels ahead 4-3 with a two-run drive in the fifth.

That was still the score when Jazz Chisholm Jr. popped up to the left side with one out and nobody on in the ninth. But shortstop Zach Neto and ex-Yankees third baseman Oswald Peraza miscommunicated, and the ball dropped between them on the infield dirt for a gift single.

That came back to bite the Angels, who had played outstanding defense all night to that point.

Austin Wells worked a full-count walk against closer Jordan Romano (0-2), and both runners were attempting to steal when Caballero lined a 1-and-2 slider into left-center.

Chisholm easily scored the tying run and third-base coach Luis Rojas aggressively waved Wells home. The catcher barely beat Neto’s relay throw to the plate with a feet-first slide, and the safe call was confirmed after a replay review.