Great Performances

GREAT PERFORMANCES: RICHARD BURTON IN EQUUS (1977)

By John H. Foote As Dr. Martin Dysart in Equus, Richard Burton delivered arguably his greatest film performance, though his work as George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) certainly must be considered in that conversation. In Peter Shaffer’s breathtaking Equus, Sidney Lumet’s probing camera strips Burton free of everything but his face and…