Student production dark, challenging

ORONO – One of the wonderful things about academic theater is the relative freedom it affords; there’s a pervasive optimism that informs it. While it might be a touch raw sometimes, it is almost always passionate.

The Maine Masque, the University of Maine’s student theater group, is full of individuals filled with that sort of passion. A show produced by the group independent of the faculty annually closes the mainstage season of UMaine theatre.

This year’s offering is a production of Peter Shaffer’s “Equus,” running through April 7 at Hauck Auditorium on the University of Maine campus.

Martin Dysart is a psychiatrist at a provincial facility in England, specializing in work with children. His life changes when a young man named Alan Strang is brought into his office, alternating between sullen silences and angrily spouting commercial jingles. Dysart is informed that Alan has been brought here because he committed an act of gruesome violence against a stable full of horses; Dysart’s job is to find out why.