Review: Sacramento Theatre Company Celebrates Neurodiversity With THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

Sacramento Theatre Company's season of Curiosity, Intrigue, and Suspense is coming to a close with its much-anticipated portrayal of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Based on the best-selling novel by Mark Haddon and adapted for the stage by Simon Stephens, this show provides an intimate look into a small sliver of the vast world of neurodivergence. It opened on Broadway in 2014 and won five Tony Awards, including Best Play and Best Scenic Design. It is an excellent example of narrative storytelling, examining difficult relationships and everyday struggles of both the differently and typically abled by showing that we are all, ultimately, more alike than not.

The story's protagonist, Christopher Boone, is a teenage boy whose only concern should be passing his A-level mathematics exam. One night, however, he comes across the body of his neighbor's dog, Wellington, in the garden. Wellington has been stabbed by a garden fork (pitchfork for us Americans) and Christopher is determined to find the identity of the perpetrator. During his investigation, he finds secrets that he is not prepared to learn and that, with the added challenges of neurodivergence, he is ill-equipped to process. Christopher is played by Thomas Larkin, a promising young actor and newcomer to STC. Larkin, who has obviously done his homework for this role, impressively displays the nuances of what is implied to be an autism spectrum condition. Bodily tics, inability to make eye contact, aversion to touch, literal-mindedness, and an uncanny ability with numbers are what makes up Christopher's incredible brain, and Larkin inhabits it with gentility. His compulsion for honesty puts his parents and acquaintances in the hot seat, as his disappointment in them is apparent for being too violent, too absent, too deceitful, and too human. His overbearing father, Ed (Mike DiSalvo), is in competition with his flighty mother, Judy (Natasha Hause) for racking up the most deceptions in Christopher's eyes. His one constant is Siobhan (Miranda D. Lawson), his teacher at the special school where, in his opinion, all the other students are stupid. Siobhan doubles as the show's narrator, who reads aloud Christopher's account of his sleuthing and the complexities it unveils.

Accompanied by a set that is a dream for the orderly-seeking (me included) and brilliantly creative props, Jerid Fox and Riley Cisneros-Gruenthal create a world that is a visual representation of the intricacies that exist in the minds of those with anxiety, compulsions, and other neurodivergences. Light tubes double as trains and doorways while squares appeal to the "evens" (numbers, lengths) that need to happen in a divergent brain to just keep existing, although Christopher prefers "odds." Director Benjamin T. Ismail's efforts to include the neurodivergent community and research what it means to live in such a mind come through in the way the cast sensitively and professionally handles the content and challenges that come with expressing the subject matter while simultaneously staying true to charismatic entertainment that is a hallmark of STC. Like Christopher, I sometimes "find people confusing," but there is nothing confusing or curious about the quality of this show. It will make you look forward to STC's next trifecta in the fall! Curiosity, Intrigue, and Suspense are closing on a creative, intense, and sublime season!

Don't forget to stay after bows to see if you're smarter than an A-level math candidate! I'm not...

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time plays at the Sacramento Theatre Company through May 21. Tickets may be found at SacTheatre.org, by calling (916) 443-6722, or by visiting the Box Office at 1419 H Street in Sacramento.

Photo credit: Charr Crail

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