Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME at AT&T Performing Arts Center, Winspear Opera House

A large, dead dog impaled with a pitchfork lies on the center of the AT&T Performing Arts Center's Winspear Opera House, and it seems as if that may be the main mystery that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time will resolve, but that is not true. For the next two and a half hours, Simon Stephen's spellbinding adaptation of the international bestseller by Mark Haddon takes the audience down the rabbit hole of sensory experiences. This is no ordinary form of theatre, but a constantly twisting, thrilling ride that captures the internal life of Christopher, a very unique teenage boy from England.

Like the novel, Curious Incident the play does not address the exact condition Christopher has-although this play has continuously been connected with Autism and Asperger's. It is clear that this boy is a savant, ready for his A Level math test at only 15 years of age. His abilities are combined with severe difficulties, primarily related to perception of sound, confusion with visual stimuli, and human touch. Adam Langdon, who portrays Christopher in the US tour, creates a sincere, physically committed portrayal of Christopher-reminiscent of students I have worked with in the past. While the gestures and physicality is exaggerated, that may be a choice to clearly communicate the mannerisms in a large venue.

We've certainly seen many realistic portrayals of people on the spectrum in plays and films, but Curious Incident successfully pulls the audience into the internal experience of the individual. Director Marianne Elliot masterfully achieves this through a full, imaginative collaboration between all of the theatrical elements. Elliot communicated the sensory experience a world that is too loud, too soft, too bright, and too fast exceptionally by utilizing all of the theatrical languages at her disposal.

Typically, theatre production divides into separate entities: sound, lights, costumes, playwright, actor, etc. The segmentation allows for efficiency in production (a "divide and conquer" way of making a play), but that process cannot foster a total theatre experience like Elliot's Curious Incident.

Bunny Christie's scenic design offers a clean, geometric space in which Christopher can make sense of the world around him. It suggests that if he can transform an experience into patterns, numbers, or simple shapes, then he is safe. As series of light boxes frame the stage and serve as the major furniture elements. Every object utilized by a performer can be moved quickly by the Acting Company during the dizzying amount of transitions.

The design choices illuminate that we, the audience, will only be privy to what Christopher experiences, what details are etched in his brain. When moments become too intense, the work of Lighting Designer Paule Constable, Video Designer Finn Ross and Sound Designer Ian Dickinson bombards the audience with a cacophony of sound and images with no sense of order, almost to the point of being unbearable.

The ensemble plays multiple roles and remains on the side of the stage, ever ready to leap into Christopher's mind. They switch from realistic characters to the synapses of Christopher's brain with abstract movement in the blink of an eye. There are some brilliant moments of staging, including a scene happening in total darkness, with only Christopher's flashlight illuminating his discoveries.

Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett's movement transforms the performers into these fluid beings that support Christopher's journey. As the play has only a few tactile elements on stage, the performers fill in those gaps physically. For example, when Christopher arrives home from school, the performers transform into the inanimate objects that Christopher interacts during his after school routine. There are numerous lifts, dance-like explorations of tempo and shape in concert with the technical design elements-all of which offer a mesmerizing experience that is typically not associated with traditional plays.

Curious Incident at times is loosely categorized as a play within a play, since it includes moments in which the performers draw attention to the fact that they are playing roles in Christopher's mind or Christopher corrects certain actions on stage. Yet, these brief moments appear to be an afterthought that is not essential to the core of the piece. Perhaps this is a light nod to the novel, which is framed as a creation of Christopher's imagination.

The flow of the narrative is piecemeal, much like the novel. The audience receives fragments of action, just as Christopher experiences it. Moments in between are bypassed, simply skipped over, because they are not the necessary from Christopher's perspective. It allows the audience to peer into a completely different way of looking at the world and gathering information. This filter also presents conflicting versions of Christopher's parents.

Christopher's father Ed, played by Gene Gillette, offers a complicated mixture of patient father and a man who may snap at any moment. He is slightly different with every entrance, based on how Christopher experiences him in real life or in his imagination. On the other hand, Christopher's mother Judy, played by an earnest FeliciTy Jones Latta, initially appears as an idealized, carefree source of unconditional love and support. Both of those visions of the parents come into question as Christopher makes some unsettling discoveries.

During Christopher's therapy sessions with his encouraging and empathetic teacher Siobhan (played by Maria Elena Ramirez), he continuously assembles a village train set that spans the entire stage. As Christopher decides to make the monumental choice of leaving his home town for London, the train comes alive and runs all the way across the stage. While taking a train and navigating a map may seem like a simple task, for a person with elevated sensory experiences, it is a dangerous journey.

As a mystery, I cannot give every plot twist away, you'll have to put the pieces together-just as Christopher assembles his train set. While Christopher may experience the world in a different way, it is a theatrical roller coaster that you will want to experience multiple times.

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus

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