I recently attended Opening Night of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the Ahmanson in DTLA – It’s a mesmerizing high tech journey into a chaotic mind
The Curious Incident is a Tony Award-winning play written by Simon Stephens adapted from Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel of the same name and directed by Tony winner Marianne Elliott (“War Horse”). This emotionally powerful play follows a 15 year old autistic boy named Christopher, who has a fascinating mind and is exceptionally brilliant, but he is ill-equipped to navigate the basics and challenges of everyday life. Christopher is severely socially awkward, doesn’t know how to connect with other people and cannot stand to be touched by another human being. The only kind of contact he can handle is the touching of hands with people he trusts like his parents. It is incredibly powerful to observe his extreme reactions to being touched throughout this play.
The plot of the story centers around Christopher being accused of killing his neighbor’s dog, and because he knows he didn’t do it, he decides to take on some detective work in order to identify the true culprit, which leads to many unexpected and life changing discoveries.
What I loved most about this play was the incredibly fresh, riveting, modern high tech staging that was used to exemplify Christopher’s fascinating mind. The simplistic set consists of grids, lights, words, numbers and secret doors which were all used in clever ways to convey the inner workings of Christopher’s mind. The way these techniques were used helps the audience feel and understand what it might feel like to be unable to connect with other people as well as better understand what might go through the mind of someone who is plagued with these types of social challenges.
The use of this modern staging and the high tech effects made this play incredibly captivating to watch because it cleverly draws the viewer into the journey and there is never a dull or boring moment being part of Christopher’s world. I thoroughly enjoyed this play and would definitely recommend seeing it during it’s time limited run in LA.The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is playing at The Ahmanson Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles now through Sep 10, 2017
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