HOLD YOUR HORSES

A provocative subject that proves hard
to recommend—and harder to ignore

Griffin Kelly and Joey Stromberg

Olivia Dufault’s For Want of a Horse tackles a subject most plays wouldn’t dare touch—and to its credit, it does so without melodrama. But what might have been a deeply human exploration of how such a taboo shapes lives instead plays more like a carefully footnoted argument.

Joey Stromberg and Jenny Soo

The story centers on Calvin (Joey Stromberg), a mild-mannered accountant whose lifelong attraction to horses has pushed him toward despair, and his wife Bonnie (Jenny Soo), a well-meaning kindergarten teacher who tries to accommodate what she barely understands. Their uneasy compromise brings a horse, Q-Tip (Griffin Kelly), into their lives, while the dog-loving PJ (Steven Culp), a fellow traveler from an online community, offers both solidarity and provocation. As the situation escalates, the play raises questions about the limits of empathy, identity, and consent (does “neigh” mean “maybe”?). I just wish it dug more deeply into its characters.

Steven Culp and Joey Stromberg

The play circles its central idea—zoophilia as identity—with a kind of intellectual caution that keeps it at arm’s length. Scenes are short, often feeling more like fragments than fully realized moments, and the constant actor-driven scene changes of Alex Mollo‘s boxes that shift between bedroom, stables and a park bench disrupt any emotional momentum just as it begins to build. Instead of digging into the messy, painful consequences for the people involved, the piece tends to explain itself, as if wary of taking too strong a stance. Compare that to Albee’s disturbingly funny The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, which hurls the family dynamic into a spin cycle on high without the play ever being about the goat.

Griffin Kelly and Joey Stromberg

It’s a tough show to recommend—not because of its subject, which is undeniably fascinating, but because it never quite becomes the drama it wants to be. And yet, it’s even tougher to dismiss. After all, this is Echo Theater Company, which consistently offers original scripts you can’t shy away from, and amazing performances. In addition, there are some discussed images that I can’t get out of my head, such as a student of Bonnie’s who is experimenting with masturbation. (If I remember correctly, Freud declared that children not only begin masturbating at three months, but they are thinking of their parents.) With straightforward direction by Elana Luo, For Want of a Horse lingers as a curiosity: a play you keep thinking about, even as you question whether it ever truly lets you in.

Jenny Soo, Joey Stromberg, Griffin Kelly

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

photos by Cooper Bates

For Want of a Horse
Echo Theater Company
Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave.
90 minutes, no intermission
Fri & Sat at 8; Sun at 4; and Mon at 8
ends on May 25, 2026
for tickets (pay-what-you-want thru $40), call 747.350.8066 or visit Echo Theater

for more shows, visit Theatre in Los Angeles

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦