According to Michael Feingold, being fat = bad acting

A lot of theater bloggers like to malign Michael Feingold. I am not one of them. His general disdain for new media is not all that out of line for his trade or age group, and he's less obnoxious about it than many others (he's also smart as hell). However, if he's going to criticize bloggers for being uncouth, he better not go around and criticize actors (especially one as established as Richard Griffiths) solely for being fat. I don't know how many people picked up on the fat joke from Feingold's review of the Daniel Radcliffe Equus:

The hogwash taints Sharrock's production particularly because Griffiths, a capable actor hopelessly miscast, never suggests a man whose inner discontent is constantly gnawing at him. On the contrary: Griffiths's placidly adipose Santa Claus of a shrink seems to have done far too much gnawing himself.

I found this line perfectly horrid and completely tasteless, straight from the Rex Reed playbook. In fairness, I have not seen the Broadway Equus yet, but I know Feingold is not alone in seeing Griffiths as miscast. What's egregious, however, is to say that Griffiths is miscast for the part simply because he is obese. Besides being unfairly mean, it's also a completely baseless claim. There's nothing saying shrinks, or even Dysart's character in particular, can't be overweight. If Feingold had a reason for not wanting a fat Dysart, he should have explained why it didn't fit the role. Instead, he basically mocked Griffiths in third grade style, veiled by a graduate school vocabulary.

It was less than two years ago when Timothy Noah slammed the Academy Awards as having a fat bias for not nominating Griffiths for The History Boys. I didn't believe it at the time, but if Feingold's review of Equus is any indication, it may be time to start addressing that bias more seriously.

The Academy's fatty problem - [Slate]
Equus, The Tempest, and The Glass Cage—Old Texts That Need Some Old-Style Theatrical Flair - [Village Voice]