Review - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Apparently, last week was my week to catch up on acclaimed plays that I somehow waited way too long to see.  Tuesday night was The Flick and Thursday night was finally the time for me to see last season's Tony Award-winning Best Play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  I loved them both and look forward to repeat visits, now that I know what I've been missing.

Though different is almost every way, both The Flick and Curious Incident are ALL about the magic of theater.  One is practically all silence and stillness and language, and the other uses all of the technology available to elevate a relatively simple story to something incredible. I was blown away by both, in completely different ways.  Spoilers will now abound, so you should probably stop reading, bookmark this page, order your tickets, see the show, then come back and see if you agree with me...

photo credit: Joan Marcus

Curious Incident opens with the death of a dog - at first, teenaged Christopher, who discovered the dog, was accused of the crime.  Once it became clear that Christopher wasn't responsible, he takes it upon himself to solve the mystery.  Making that difficult is the fact that Christopher is autistic, to whom routine and ritual are essential.  Moving outside that comfort zone causes him supreme anxiety - part of the genius of the play is that the director has placed the audience practically inside Christopher's mind.  We see everything play out in the lines and graphs that Christopher orders his world in.  When he steps outside those lines and graphs, the extreme sensory overload is overwhelming, both for him and the audience.  I don't think I've seen a more terrifying scene lately than when Christopher tries to ride the subway and he is assaulted with sensations he barely knows how to deal with.

As Christopher tries to solve the mystery of the dog's murder, other mysteries come to light.  At the beginning of the play, we're told that Christopher's mother died two years ago, but as he digs up information from the neighbors, he discovers that she may not have died after all.  So now there are several things for him to try to work through, all while maintaining his equilibrium (which isn't easy).  The sets and lights and sound and choreography were brilliant in showing us exactly how Christopher was feeling, and processing information, moment to moment.  As a boy on the autistic spectrum (I guess that he is, it's never actually stated what Christopher's issues are), Christopher can't be touched, can't lie, often can't decipher 'small talk' and has a rigidity in how he sees and responds to things.  But he also has a vulnerability that is heartbreaking.  His father longs to touch him and show him affection, but he constantly keeps him at arm's length, nearly literally.

The production does an excellent job integrating narration with the rest of the action; I'll admit I wasn't as keen on the 'play within a play' stuff in the second act, but I think with such a complex story, using different storytelling methods was completely appropriate and really smart, so I got over it.  Some of the staging was so wildly ingenious, my breath was taken away.  But I also held my breath at some of the quiet moments, as well, so it wasn't just the tricks and theatrical wizardry that caught my fancy, but the whole package.

Most of the original cast has departed the production, including the much-lauded lead boy, but the young man I saw play Christopher, Tyler Lea, was incredible.  I can't even imagine a better performance.  He had to portray this very rigid personality, yet not make him robotic or repetitive and make you care for his plight - Lea did all of this brilliantly.  He was funny, sad, scared, smart, self-aware, yet completely ingenuous.  Christopher is an amazing creation on the page, but could easily become a cliche; in Lea's hands, he's a complete whole person.

The rest of the cast was also terrific, I was especially taken with Andrew Long and Enid Graham as Christopher's parents and Nancy Robinette as a warm, kindly neighbor who tries to connect with Christopher.  But, really, everyone was good, and they made a formidable ensemble.  The staging of this show must be a bear to perform every night - one wrong step and the entire grid would fall apart.  The cast all works together as an incredible whole to elevate the material to the level of the amazing physical production.

I was really just blown away by the production and loved every minute of it.  I found it thrilling to look at and experience, but also very moving to listen to and feel.  I definitely would love to see it again, but who knows when it will come up on TDF again?  Maybe I should target other shows I missed early on to see what I may have missed.  Hmmm.  I don't have any tickets coming up in the near future - I can think of at least one acclaimed musical from last season (if not two) that I haven't seen yet.  I need to work on this!