BWW Reviews: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME is Visually Extraordinary, Emotionally Lacking

The first time British director Marianne Elliott was represented on Broadway, the play she co-directed, based on Michael Morpurgo's novel, War Horse, stirred up some controversy with its Tony Award win as the best of the season. While few would argue with the Best Director prize awarded to Elliott and her colleague, Tom Morris, giving the honor of Best Play to Nick Stafford, credited in the program as the adapter of Morpurgo's book and not as a playwright, raised eyebrows among those who thought his text was merely a serviceable vehicle for the production's main attraction, the impressive and imaginative staging.

Should Elliott's return to Broadway, as sole director of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, be similarly honored, it may raise the same issue. Though Simon Stephens is fully credited as a playwright for this one, his adaptation of Mark Haddon's story involving a 15-year-old boy with an unnamed behavioral condition generally regarded by readers as Asperger's syndrome mainly serves as a narrative for the visuals created by Elliott and her technologically talented cohorts, whose work is the primary reason for putting Haddon's book on stage.

Designer Bunny Christie's set, a cube of black walls with thin white lines resembling graph paper, is empty when the audience first enters. But after a blackout, the play begins with the corpse of a large dog lying center stage, the pitchfork that killed him still sticking inside.

Young Christopher (an excellent and thoroughly engaging Alex Sharp) is suspected of murdering his neighbor's pet after an awkward encounter with a police officer who doesn't understand his condition. Christopher is quite brilliant in math and has a keen sense of the stimuli of the world around him, but indirect nuances of communication confuse him.

A fan of Sherlock Holmes (The title is taken from a quote from "Silver Blaze."), Christopher endeavors to solve the mystery of the dog's murder and to write a book about it for his own personal use. He initially rejects the suggestion from his nurturing teacher (Francesca Faridany) to turn the story into a play because he considers acting to be a kind of a lie.

His investigation unexpectedly reveals discoveries about his parents (a gruff and loving Ian Barford and an emotionally stressed Enid Graham) and takes him on a trip to London, where he ventures far from the comfort of the everyday routines of his suburban life to something scary and new.

But the story is secondary to Elliott's inventive staging that shows us the world as Christopher experiences it. Uneventful occurrences for other people, like asking for directions or riding an escalator, are overwhelming to him unless he can imagine them as logical mathematical equations.

Along with Christie's versatile set, the exceptional work by video designer Finn Ross, lighting designer Paul Constable, composer Adrian Sutton and choreographers Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett combine to create the confusing and intimidating sights and sounds Christopher encounters, as well as graphics that explain the equations behind his efforts to make sense of them.

If the text were as inventive and surprising as the production, Curious Incident would be an extraordinary evening, but even Elliot's cleverness feels strained when there is little empathy behind it.

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