“Horsing around” takes on new meaning in Olivia Dufault’s For Want Of A Horse, Echo Theater Company’s provocative World Premiere look at a man with two loves, his wife Bonnie and a filly named Q-Tip.

It’s not that married 30somethings Calvin (Joey Stromberg) and Bonnie (Jenny Soo) aren’t relatively happy before Q-Tip (Griffin Kelly) enters the picture.

Indeed about only thing concerning Bonnie these days is her elementary school pupil McKenna’s worrisome habit of touching herself inside her tights, well that and Calvin’s internet search history.

Still, what’s a wife to do but roll with the punches, and given that her husband’s “weird, weird, morally complicated” desires aren’t likely to go away (indeed it seems at times that Calvin is just counting down the days until his death), why not just go ahead and buy a horse?

After all, it’s not like he’d be seeing another woman, right?

Enter Q-Tip, so named because of the white stripe down her back, and if she’s initially wary of Calvin’s interest in her, it doesn’t take much more than a quickly gobbled-down apple to have her literally eating out of his hand.

As for the moral support Calvin needs as he embarks on this new relationship, well he’s already got that in the person of PJ (Steven Culp), who’s been in a loving sexual relationship with his Bichon Frisé Sophie for years, and don’t go claiming he’s forcing her to do something she doesn’t want to because “if I slather peanut butter on my penis and have Sophie lick it off who’s really in control, here? Me? Or the dog who’s got my dick in her jaws?”

If it’s not already clear, For Want Of A Horse is probably not for everyone. (It’s definitely not A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia, or a Mister Ed spin-off with a talking mare taking over for Wilbur’s equine bff.)

And as comedic as it comes across early on, the zoophile community Calvin and PJ are part of actually exists, and the questions Dufault’s play asks are serious ones.

Is Calvin right when he tells Bonnie that he’s not sick, not bad, “just different,” or is he getting into dangerous waters when he compares zoophilia to being gay?

On the other hand, without the absurdist comedy aspects of the play’s initial scenes, audiences might find themselves turned off by and tuning out to a play that turns out to be one of the year’s best.

And speaking of year’s best, I’ve never seen a performance quite like Kelly’s tour-de-force work as Q-Tip, whose every move and gesture are not only authentically equine, as a character with both a mane and a heart, her Q-Tip is utterly, poignantly real.

Director Elana Luo sets a whimsical tone that gradually darkens as she elicits powerful, multi-faceted, reality-grounded performances from Q-Tip’s three human castmates.

The charismatic Bromberg has us aching for Calvin’s search for romantic and sexual fulfillment even as we recoil from what he is proposing, and Soo follows her sensational work in Theatre of NOTE’s The Dignity Circle with another dramatic star turn as a woman who’s doing her best to be supportive until it all becomes too much to take.

The always outstanding Culp completes the cast as a man so convinced he’s doing nothing wrong, he’d be the perfect spokesperson for zoophile rights, and that makes his PJ all the scarier.

Alex Mellow’s scenic design allows us to imagine we’re in Calvin and Bonnie’s bedroom one minute and in Q-Tip’s stable the next, and Matthew Richter lights it quite stunningly.

Leah Morrison’s costumes are not only perfect choices for the play’s three human characters, the one she has created for Q-Tip avoids the obvious in the most remarkable of ways.

Alysha Bermudez’s sound design and autodealer’s (aka Richter’s) emotionally impactful original music complete the production design mix to mesmerizing effect.

For Want Of A Horse is produced by Marie Bland and Chris Fields. Eve Gordon and Meghan McEnery are associate producers. Bianca Rickheim is production stage manager. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

For Want Of A Horse is the kind of play that could go terribly wrong in the wrong hands. That it doesn’t is just one reason it is a must-see for adventurous, open-minded theatergoers, not to mention a knock-your-socks-off ending I’m sworn to secrecy not to reveal.

The Echo Theater Company @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village.
www.EchoTheaterCompany.com

–Steven Stanley
April 19, 2026
Photos: Cooper Bates

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: Echo Theater Company, Los Angeles Theater Review, Olivia Dufault