The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

Or: The Rules aren’t made to be broken.

Christopher Boone (Davy Collins) is a kid with a difference. He is fifteen years old (and a bit.) He lives with his father Ed (Arthur Glen Hughes) in Swindon. His mother, Judy (Donna Jean Fogel) isn’t around anymore. He has a rat named Toby, and a teacher named Siobhan (Ravin Patterson), and he likes maths, and engineering, and outer space. And he did not kill Wellington, his neighbor's dog. It may look like he did, we do discover him with his arms around the corpse, head laid to the side of the garden fork ‘that done the bloody deed.’ And now, faced with an unpleasant interruption to his ordered existence, Christopher sets out to solve the curious incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, only to discover far more complicated mysteries, and face challenges he cannot fathom.

Based on Mark Haddon’s luminous novel of the same name, the adaptation (by Simon Stephens) takes us inside an a-neurotypical world, painting a new, vivid and often too-bright focus on the things most of us wouldn’t think about. While the play ties a neat performative bow on Christopher’s “book” (his journal/recounting of the mystery of the death of Wellington) and studiously ignores his less lovable attributes, we get a stock by stock look at a right-angled world, based on a compendium of laws: facts, actions, and compacts, that govern Christopher’s existence. So long as these laws are obeyed, the world ticks along quite well, when they are broken (and oh boy do they get broken) bad things happen. Directed by Tracy Sunderland, the six-person ensemble order, confuse and unpack the hidden corners of Christopher’s experience. A flurry of movements and Christopher can be sent soaring through the air or leaping off backs and shins as he is plunged and pinged into a tsunami of stimuli, provided by the flashing set of Rick Martin, and the furious electronic soundtrack (which takes on epic proportions more than once) furnished by Tom Carman. If the production has a fault it's spending too long in the broad gestures, masticated narration and hardcore mime. Time feels its weight here, but some moments: like a fraught-filled, almost sanctified undressing, or the hope and denial of a moment of connection, or a panic attack that cancerously roots its way through the entire company, or the culmination of an act-long project, land spot on with a zen simplicity and barebones beauty.

Collins Christopher is likewise a work of art born of pointillism, a thousand small gestures coming together to make a whole. Stiff and angular, Christopher clips along through his world, his daily rituals, and adopted procedures. Collins carries a slight impatience and petulance to the character, perfectly understandable from the only sane man (as he sees himself) in the entire world, tired with people who cast doubt on him or use confusing language or don’t behave as they ought. It is also a performance wired throughout his body. From the slightest tremor in his foot to STEMing, to a boneless collapse, to wild front flips and rolls while pursuing his detective work, Collins shows off a breathtaking range of physical prowess, accomplishing grand feats and the nicest of nuances.

The lure of the novel, and the play too, is to peek behind Christopher’s eyes and see life on the spectrum. To walk a mile in his shoes and exit through the gift shop of compassion, or trinkets of understanding in hand. Yet, what the production has done so well, besides thrilling us with their athletic and emotional prowess, is lend a gravity to Christopher's trials. While his adversities may seem like simple legwork to us (talking to a neighbor, taking a train) to him they are insurmountable tasks. And if a boy like Christopher (not to mention those around him, in the shadow play of their no less agonizing struggles) can brave the impossible, can see his world shatter and then put it back together again, why should we the audience shy from our own burdens?