Fall Play Review

Last Friday night, my friends and I all had the chance to see the fall play, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. Playwright Simon Stephens adapted the book into a phenomenal play which provides many themes and messages to audiences of all ages. This show circles around Christopher (played by Amelia), an autistic boy with home life struggles, who is trying to find his way through life and hopefully find his mom in London. Co-directed by Ms. Guarino and Mr. Hunton, as well as student-director, Olivia, the show opened with Christopher finding the neighbor’s dog dead in their garden, and unfolds into exposing his home life with his father. Christopher’s father cares deeply about him, but is emotionally unstable himself and sometimes acts violently erradical in front of Christopher. Once Christopher’s father, played by Willjam, comes clean to him about where his mother is, Christopher feels as if he cannot trust anyone, and sets out to find his mom on his own. The audience follows Christopher through all these confusing challenges, while learning about the significance that relationships have to the youth. 

Examining the more concrete aspects of this production, the staging was overall very simple. One of my favorite scenes was during the second act when Christopher was taking a train to London to find his mom. The actors placed stools in a way that the seats are set up on a train to symbolize what is happening in the scene and replicate that feeling of being on a train and traveling. It reminded me of staging from “Come From Away” when all the passengers only had seats set up to symbolize that they were on an airplane. This simplicity is aesthetically pleasing and allows for the audience to envision what they think the train would look like. I also found all the sound effects used very useful. There were not too many, so it wasn’t overpowering or excessive, but every time each sound effect was used it added to the scene and helped the audience envision the setting along with Christopher. In addition, I loved the use of lighting in this production. The strobe lights and flashing colors really allowed the audience to be in Christopher’s mind and feel the chaos and confusion that lives in his head everyday. Lastly, to me, costuming played a huge role in the understanding of this show. For example, Olivia, who played the teacher, was dressed in gray and black professional looking clothes. This costuming let the audience know that she was not necessarily “in” the story, but acted more as a narrator guiding them through the show. Contrary to this was Christopher’s and his father’s costuming. Both Willjam and Amelia wore more casual clothes such as sweatshirts and jeans, to show that they were almost in “a different world” than Olivia and that they were the focus of the story. The third group of people were the average citizens from the train station. These characters all wore different types of clothing to show that they were all different people heading to different locations. They seemed to dress more modernly than Christopher. These three different choices of costuming tiered the different levels of this story, from narrator, to main characters, to average people living in the community that Christopher lives in. All of this added to the vision of this show, which seemed to be to highlight all the relationships between these three groups of people, and how they are all seen by Christopher.

The most powerful moment in the show to me was at the end of Act I. The act closed with all different groups of people telling Christopher that he doesn’t have to run away, yet him choosing to do so anyways. Christopher was standing in the middle of the stage, with his dad, elderly neighbor, mother, and priest, all telling him that he doesn’t have to do this and that he can be happy right where he is. They were all trying to convince him and get this message through to him, but the trust he once had with all these people was shattered, and so he left anyways on his own. This was really powerful for me, once again, due to the simple staging of this moment. With one character in each corner of the stage all looking in to Christopher in the center, this created such tension and emotion because they all were showing Christopher that they love and care about him, yet he ran away from this anyways. He decided instead to start this journey to find his mom alone, as he believed that he couldn’t rely on anyone but himself. It made me feel scared for him because I didn’t want him to get in trouble since he’d never really been on his own before and he was going to a place he’d never been. Not to mention that he is autistic and people in the real world can be really cruel to people with disabilities. 

This leads to my next remark about Amelia. Amelia, who played Christopher was definitely my favorite actor. I’ve only seen people get that much into character in Broadway shows. She was locked into the character of Christopher and this made for a really convincing performance. In all of the scenes where Christopher had a breakdown, she really showed the agony and confusion that Christopher was feeling, and projected this emotion onto the audience. It was so convincing that there were times when I felt like I was feeling the pain alongside Christopher and just wanted to be able to console him. She portrayed very clearly a boy with autistic disabilities through the use of gesture and voice. For example, the way she spoke her lines was very simple and almost monotonal, similar to how some autistic people speak in the real world. In addition, she was able to use body movements to portray her character. There were times when she would be rocking back and forth on the floor during times of distress. Christopher also did not like being touched, so when someone went to do this in the show, she screamed really loud and moved away very vigorously from whomever was around her. Both of these examples are ways in which Amelia was effectively able to portray Christopher, his condition, and how he acts and thinks. 

Normally, I find myself enjoying musicals over plays. But this show changed my mind. Yes, there was some really heavy content throughout this entire show. But all the actors were really provoking and into character, which grasped my attention throughout the whole show. I found myself being drawn into the story of Christopher and thoroughly enjoyed this show. In addition, I had brought some of my friends to the show who normally don’t tend to enjoy theatre or watch theatre that much. However, after watching this production, they all loved what they saw, which says a lot about the quality of this show, it’s actors, and the production as a whole. The story is one that I feel needs to be told more, especially today. I learned that if done right and effectively, theatre covering heavy topics can really move and inspire people, as well as open people’s minds to new ideas that they’ve never thought about before.