By Julia Harris, Staff Reporter
This year’s fall show, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Simon Stephens, is a compelling story centering around 15-year-old detective and mathematical genius Christopher John Francis Boone. All the actors in the play were exceptional and captivating, especially Christopher, who was double casted with Jared Bundens and Thomas Dunlap. The rest of the cast fit perfectly into their roles, namely Maxmillian Shah (Christopher’s dad) and Alexis Costas (Christopher’s mom).
Christopher spent most of his childhood reading Sherlock Holmes books and memorizing math problems, leaving little time for developing social skills. The show opens with him finding his neighbor’s dog dead in the middle of the night, stabbed with a garden fork. Christopher is shocked and can’t think of who would do such a thing.After some digging, Christopher discovers that his dad was the one who killed Wellington.
I really liked the unique way the play was directed; rather than just the characters involved in the current discussion, many actors were on stage at a time, and when it was their turn to speak, a spotlight would shine on just them. This was the perfect way to represent Christopher traveling from door to door to interrogate his neighbors about Wellington’s death. It flowed well and avoided audience members losing interest because of unnecessary scene changes.
I also enjoyed the way Christopher’s thoughts were depicted through speaker sounds and visual projections. It is apparent that he has a lot going on in his mind that would be difficult to convey through words. For example, Christopher mentions that he notices a lot more detail than the average person, and he was on the train with lots of people surrounding him, loud noises were played through the speaker to show how busy settings can affect him more than the average person. When the world around him gets too overwhelming, Christopher often uses counting and doing math problems in his head as a coping mechanism. During those scenes, there were projected numbers and mathematical figures dancing around the stage.
Overall, the plot line of this show was a bit unsettling at times, and I am not sure I recommend younger kids to see it. However, the ending lightened things up and I left the play with a newfound appreciation of peoples’ differences and that you never know what is going on inside a person’s mind.
Julia Harris can be reached at [email protected].
