The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time @ Allen Contemporary Theatre
—Jill Sweeney
There’s a danger inherent in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, adapted by English playwright Simon Stephens from a novel by Mark Haddon; it’s a danger that most shows written about non-neurotypical people at the very least flirt with—that of falling into a sort of cloying sentimentality about the challenges such individuals face and their eventual, oh-so-inspiring triumphs over said adversity. The audience cries, and smiles, and cheers at precisely the moments the play intends them to, and a good time is had by all.
But Curious Incident manages to avoid most of these pitfalls by placing the audience in its protagonist’s head. And Christopher John Francis Boone, the show’s star, and the lens through which the audience views its world, simply has no time for feel-good nonsense. Allen Contemporary Theatre’s production of the play boasts not only a tight and energetic ensemble, but a well-realized production concept that credibly tries to replicate Christopher’s experience of the world—all that, and there’s even a cute puppy!
I’m loath to get too far into unravelling the play’s mysteries (there are several), but the key incident of the play, as in the Sherlock Holmes tale from which the novel and play take their name, involves a dog and a dearth of barking. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale, the dog who didn’t bark failed to do so because it recognized a familiar face; in this tale, the dog is dead, under seriously gruesome circumstances. Young Christopher (played with welcome restraint by newcomer Eddie Thompson, making his professional debut in this piece), discovers the dog (his neighbor’s pet) in her yard, impaled on a pitchfork. The incident is like a bomb going off in Christopher’s rigidly controlled life, spurring the young man to explore the initial mystery of “who dun it?”—and the even more explosive mysteries his “deducting” uncovers about Christopher’s own family.
Christopher’s life is so rigidly controlled by design: though the specifics are not mentioned, he is seemingly somewhere on the autism spectrum, with a somewhat trope-y genius for mathematics, severe difficulties with social skills, and a virulent dislike for any sort of lying or pretense. He attends a school for children with special needs in Swindon, England, and lives at home with his harried but mostly patient father, Ed (Jarrett Self) and his pet rat, Toby, who, Christopher assures multiple people throughout the show, is very clean and does not carry bubonic plague. Christopher’s mother Judy (Megan Tormey), we are told early on, died abruptly of a heart attack two years before the events of the play. And the play itself is a bit of a play-within-a-play, pulled from one of Christopher’s school assignments; his well-meaning teacher Siobhan (Shea McMillan) narrates the action from a notebook in which Christopher details his investigations.
Under the thoughtful direction of Chris Berthelot, Thompson avoids the obvious danger of over-reliance on physical tics in portraying Christopher, but subtly plays up his lack of eye contact and aversion to physical touch in the play’s quieter scenes, especially with his father. This restraint makes the more explosive moments of the show, when Christopher feels threatened or overwhelmed, all the more effective, bolstered by the show’s simple but supremely effective projection, sound, and lighting design (credit to designers Alex Magee, Berthelot, and Greg and Melinda Cotton, respectively).
The projections are an excellent medium for pushing the audience to see the world visually, as Christopher does. “I see everything,” Christopher says at one point. “Most other people are lazy. They never look at everything. They do what is called glancing, which is the same word for bumping off something and carrying on in almost the same direction.” The visuals accompanying this—what a typical passenger sees out a train window versus what Christopher sees, i.e. absolutely every detail of the cows classed by color, the number of buildings, the types of grass, etc.—convey the sensory overload of Christopher’s day-to-day life with devastating effect.
Self and Tormey’s characters are familiar to anyone who has a non-neurotypical person in their life: they are exhausted, loving, overwhelmed, flawed, and nowhere near as patient as they want to be with their challenging child. Both actors bring nuance and pathos to their roles, particularly Self, who doesn’t shy away from his character’s less attractive qualities. McMillan, in a dual role both as one of the play’s narrators and another character, meets the challenge (of mostly being relegated to reacting to the play’s events) with aplomb. The rest of the ensemble, who play not only a variety of smaller roles, but also the many voices in Christopher’s head, are a well-oiled machine, reacting in unison to Christopher’s emotions. At times, they also embody barriers to his daily functioning in the world on top of the separate characters they are asked to portray. And worth noting, the cast also performs the piece in credible English dialect (kudos to dialect coach Anthony Magee), which manages to be both realistic and comprehensible to the audience (no small feat).
This was my first visit to Allen Contemporary Theatre (a bit of a hike for me, being Fort Worth-based as I am), but it was well worth the drive. So come out, grab a box of complimentary popcorn, and try and see the world through someone else’s eyes. Isn’t that why we go to the theater in the first place?
WHEN: Through April 2nd
WHERE: 1210 E Main Street, #300, Allen, TX 75002
