Peter Shaffer comedies. "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" (1964) presents the tragic conquest of Peru by the Spanish, while "Black Comedy" (1965) takes a humorous look at the antics of a group of characters feeling their way around a pitch black room — although the stage is actually flooded with light. "Equus" (1973) won Shaffer the 1975 Tony Award for Best Play as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. A journey into the mind of a seventeen-year-old stable-boy who had plunged a spike into the eyes of six horses, "Equus" ran for over 1,000 performances on Broadway. It
The Royal Hunt of the Sun Music is a key element to this play, more so than any other by Peter Shaffer. He wanted strange and disturbing sounds produced on primitive instruments such as saws, reed pipes, drums (tablas and bongos) and cymbals to create the aural world of 16th Century Peru. Shaffer was so impressed with Marc Wilkinson's score for "The Royal Hunt Of The Sun", which he has described as "perhaps the best score for a play to be written since Grieg embellished "Peer Gynt"", that he now considers it integral to the play. The staging is relatively simple: an upper and lower part