Unconventional Relationship: ‘For Want of a Horse’ makes its debut in LA

Laura Latzko

The topic of opening up a relationship can be difficult enough, but it can become even more complicated when it involves a four-legged creature. In her show “For Want of a Horse,” trans playwright, screenwriter and comic book author Olivia Dufault explores what happens when a married man wants to pursue a relationship with a horse.

Echo Theater Company will present the world premiere of the play through Monday, May 25, at Atwater Village Theatre.

Founded in 1997, Echo Theater Company regularly develops and produces new works.

In Dufault’s play, Calvin, a man who is devoted to his wife Bonnie, confides to his best friend PJ that he wants to open his relationship to another partner. The catch is the other romantic partner would be Q-Tip, a horse.

The production stars Joey Stromberg as Calvin, Jenny Soo as Bonnie, Steven Culp as PJ and Griffin Kelly as Q-Tip. The show was directed by Echo’s associate artistic director Elana Luo.

The dark comedy explores love, desire and unconventional relationships in a unique way. It touches on sexual themes and is recommended for audiences 18 and older.

Dufault said that the show is structured similarly to a romantic comedy.

“In a lot of ways, it’s a classic romantic triangle, except one of the participants happens to be a horse. It follows certain classic romantic arcs and tropes,” Dufault said.

Dufault said while the play is about an alternative relationship, audience members are able to empathize with the characters.

The show explores the relationship between Q-Tip and Calvin as it develops.

“We really see him discover this horse for the first time and develop a relationship with it. We see the horse's perspective of him and her changing sense of the dynamic that exists between them as well as her awareness and lack of awareness about what's going on,” Dufault said.

The playwright also looks at how Bonnie’s relationship with Calvin and Q-Tip develops over the course of the show.

The set is designed to look like the interior of a barn. The show takes place in several different spaces, including Calvin and Bonnie’s bedroom and Q-Tip’s stable.

“The horse lives in a stable an hour away, but in a lot of ways, the set is meant to feel like the bedroom is existing in the stable, and the stable is existing in the bedroom,” Dufault said.

In the show, fellow zoophile PJ is in a relationship with a dog.

“He’s this very weird mentor-type figure in Calvin's life…He represents some of the most audacious, absurd and over-the-top perspectives and statements in the play,” Dufault said.

Dufault also wrote a play called “Year of the Rooster” about cockfighting, in which an actor portrayed a gamecock.

Often in her plays, Dufault has incorporated talking animals, inanimate objects and abstract constructs.

“I grew up in the rural in rural Massachusetts, and I had lots of animals surrounding me, both inside and outside the house. We had lots of dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs, and then my neighbors had pigs. There was a horse that lived across the street from us, that would cross by in our backyard, and the dogs would go crazy. I’ve always been interested our relationship with animals,” Dufault said.

Dufault said that when writing animal characters, she often uses them as devices to explore larger concepts.

“When I have animals in my plays, I like them to be very wise but also very, very stupid at the same time. They in certain ways represent certain themes that the play is talking about. In this play, Q-Tip, the horse, really talks a lot about domestication, domination and freedom. Some of that came from when I saw horses, they were being ridden across our property, these big, enormous animals that caused our animals to go crazy. They were very much at the control of their rider. I think that stuck with me,” Dufault said.

The show was inspired by a 2014 New York Magazine article titled “What It’s Like to Date a Horse,” which was part of series of interviews on “strange love.”

“It was about a man and his wife who opened up their relationship to include a horse. It was sent to me by a playwright friend. I think like a lot of people, I initially found it hilarious in its absurdity. It was so horrifying in a way. Then, as I can continued to read, I just began to get deeply, deeply sad for everyone involved in the story, the man, the wife, the horse. I began to feel deeply empathetic for everyone involved in this way that I found really compelling and confusing. I guess I want to explore that empathy and the power and perils of it through this play,” Dufault said.

Dufault also drew inspiration from Edward Albee’s play “The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia,” in which a married man falls in love with a goat.

“I read that play in college. I’ve always loved Albee’s work. There’s something about that play where I was like, ‘For talking about human-animal sex, it really plays it safe.’ Then, when this article came to me, I began thinking about what if he had included the goat as a character? What if we treated this with the same sincerity as this interview?’ Dufault said.

Kelly, who is taking on the role Q-Tip, has played animal characters before. She starred in her one-woman show “Two Cats on a Date.”

“She’s no stranger to portraying animals in funny, weird, even romantic situations. In a lot of ways, this is weirdly right up her alley… She was sent the play, and she wasn't told which character we were interested in her for. Immediately, she was like,’ Oh, of course, I'm playing the horse.’ I don’t want to misquote her, but she said something along the along the lines of, ‘I really felt understood by the play,’” Dufault said.

For the production, Kelly, known for the Emmy-winning series “The Book of Queer,” did a lot of research on horses.

“She’s done incredible work terms of observing horses, both through videos and in person, to see their mannerisms. She really is able to capture movements where I didn't even realize that was a horse-like movement until she did it….There were certain elements that I talk about in the script related to the horse's ears and the ears being the way that they communicate. The horse in the play really loves apples. Whenever she sees an apple, she goes a little wild for it. She adores them. That seems very animalistic in terms of a character who has these grander monologues only to immediately be distracted by the presence of an apple. That was something I drew on from observing the animals in my own life,” Dufault said.

The character Q-Tip is presented in a complex way, as an actual horse that is about to express herself in a way the audience can understand.

“When she talks, the other characters do not understand her. For all intents and purposes, she is a horse. She just voices her thoughts, which are at times grand and at times simple,” Dufault said. “We do not go with a full horse outfit. The costume is very much a suggestion of a horse. It plays with silhouette in a really interesting way that gives off the impression of a horse’s size to a degree. The color of the fabric used is really reminiscent of a horse's coat.”

“For Want of a Horse” has been in development for about two years with Echo. Dufault wrote the show about 10 years ago.

She often tries to create works that surprise audiences and make them think.

“Inciting strong emotion is really important to me in my work, and this play definitely does that,” Dufault said.

In 2015, Dufault was awarded the Playwrights of New York (PoNY) fellowship. During this time, she was able to write full time, and one of the works she developed was the play

Dufault also received a Venturous Playwrights Fellowship for the work.

Dufault has done a range of different projects throughout her career.

She is also known for her play “The Tomb of King Tot.”

For TV, Dufault has worked as a story editor for “Preacher,” co-executive producer on “Legion” and a writer on the new Netflix supernatural drama “Pagans.”

She has recently been focusing more on comic books and graphic novels. She plans to release her latest graphic novel “Laserworld” in 2027.

“It’s set in a post-apocalyptic, Mad-Maxesque wasteland, where the world has been reduced to this endless desert. You’d expect the protagonist would be this hardened road warrior. Instead, she is a laser hair removal technician who travels from community to community, exchanging her services to survive this harsh wasteland,” Dufault said. “It was inspired by the pandemic, by people having stylists come over to their home to get their hair done during the pandemic and by my own evolving relationship with my body hair during the pandemic….It brought up lots of questions for me about what degree is body hair an empowering act of self-actualization and what degree is it a relic that society should have abandoned long ago….In a lot of ways, this comic is about the significance of being able to make impactful choices in your life during the end times.”

The playwright often draws from what she observes in everyday life for her work.

“A lot of my stories tend to be pretty audacious or bombastic, whether it’s a romantic triangle with a horse or post-apocalyptic laser hair removal. It’s really important for me to always have it grounded in something authentic and sincere that I’m thinking about or wrestling with,” Dufault said.

Echo Theater Company’s production of “For Want of a Horse”

WHEN: 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays, 4 p.m. Sundays, through Monday, May 25
WHERE: Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Avenue, Los Angeles
COST: $15 to $42.75
INFO: echotheatercompany.com