Reviews 2017
Reviews 2017
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by Simon Stephens, directed by Marianne Elliott
National Theatre, Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto
October 15-November 19, 2017
Christopher: “I like the rain because it shows you that all water is related”
David Mirvish has brought Marianne Elliott’s dazzling production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time to Toronto and it is a gift for theatre-lovers. The Toronto stop is part of the play’s international tour which began in Amsterdam last month and continues to Melbourne, Australia, and then to Hong Kong. The genius of Elliott’s production is to find the balance between what is intimate and human versus what is spectacular and technological. Elliott has a gift for this as was evident in her previous international hit War Horse (2007), co-directed with Tom Morris. Having seen Curious Incident in London in 2013, I can assure Toronto audiences that the touring production, despite its complete change of cast, is amazingly like the sit-down production in London.
The play is the National Theatre’s stage adaptation of Mark Haddon’s acclaimed 2003 novel of the same name by Simon Stephens. The story concerns Christopher Boone (Joshua Jenkins), who comes upon the body of Wellington, a neighbour’s dog, stabbed to death with a pitchfork. Since Christopher strikes a policeman who has come to investigate the incident, Christopher is taken down to the police station as a suspect. His father Ed (David Michaels) rescues him from the police by explaining Christopher’s condition and telling them that if Christopher says he did not do it, he did not, because Christopher is incapable of telling a lie.
Although the word is never mentioned in the play, Christopher is autistic. Since Christopher only understands language literally, he finds people confusing because they constantly lie by using metaphors. He can’t stand being touched and when he is overwhelmed by information, he can’t cope and tries to withdraw from his surroundings. At the same time, although only 15, he is a wizard in math and is preparing to take his A-levels in the subject.
Because the police show little interest in discovering who killed Wellington, Christopher, despite his father’s objections, decides to investigate the matter himself. We have the sense that Christopher is so intent on investigating Wellington’s death because at nearly the same time his father has told him that his mother Judy (Emma Beattie) has died of a heart attack in hospital.
Christopher goes door-to-door interviewing his neighbours, most of whom like Mrs. Shears (Amanda Posener), the dog’s owner, are uninterested in helping such a peculiar kid. Only one, the elderly, partially deaf Mrs. Alexander (Debra Michaels) is willing to help, but the information she has turns Christopher’s world upside down and impels him to take a trip to London, an especially frightening experience since he has never left home before.
The most technically exciting parts of the show are those where Elliott and her creative team use the tech-laden set to show us what the world looks like from Christopher’s point of view. When Christopher dreams of his love of outer space, video designer Finn Ross covers the walls with stars and distant planets. When Christopher falls into a tantrum when confronted with lies people have told him or contradictions to his plans, he clings to his love of prime numbers for a sense of security. Here Ross shows projections of these numbers flying out of Christopher’s crouched body and spreading all over the stage.
The most impressive sequence is Christopher’s train journey to London. He has never been out of Swindon or travelled by himself and so, for him, the journey is a massive and daunting ordeal. All of the minutiae of travel that we take for granted are new to him and incomprehensible – finding the station, buying a ticket, finding a carriage knowing when to get off. All this is beautifully conveyed as new and unusual by Elliott and her team. Christopher’s arrival at Paddington Station is the most frightening part of all. Since Christopher’s condition prevents him from filtering information, Finn Ross’s projections of useful information mixed with advertisements reinforced by Ian Dickinson’s sound design and Paule Constable’s lighting shows us what utter chaos the ordinary world is for Christopher.
With the help of the physical movement choreographed by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett we see he feels he is literally walking on the walls of the station. Yet, he manages to negotiate this world by remembering coping mechanisms taught him by his teacher Siobhan (Julie Hale), such as literally taking one step – left, right, left, right – at a time to get through this maze of information overload. This kind of sequence, emblematic of the whole play, not only brilliantly shows us Christopher’s world but also satirizes the bizarreness of the world that we consider “normal”.
There are effects used in the sit-down London production that the touring production must omit. Tables do not rise from the floor and slats do not protrude from the back wall to represent an escalator. The scene so terrifying for Christopher of taking the London Tube for the first time has been rethought. In the London production a large part of the downstage floor suddenly sank to represent a pit for subway tracks and the passengers faced forwards toward the audience. In the touring version, the the whole scene is played along the midline of the stage with the passengers facing stage left. It is not as effective and doesn’t capture as well why the subway is so terrifying to Christopher.
While Elliott’s use of programmed lighting and projections is high tech and quite exciting, she balances this aspect with otherwise minimalist staging and human powered effects. The main props in the empty grey box of the set are simply white wooden crates usually used as seats for the actor, many of whom remain on stage watching the action. The crates can be piled into various configurations to represent a refrigerator, a built-in microwave oven or a heap of luggage. Flying effects are created entirely by the cast picking up the flyer and carrying him or her about the stage or allowing the flyer to tumble out of their grasp. The cast use mime to serve as doors and windows and other objects. By balancing these low-tech effects with the high-tech ones and even combining the two, Elliott ensures that the high-tech spectacle does not overwhelm but enhances the human story at its centre.
The touring cast presents a mix of plusses and minuses over the London cast I saw in 2013. In London, Mike Noble gave a much more inward-looking performance as Christopher and conveyed much more easily how Christopher’s condition alienates him from the outside world. In the touring production Joshua Jenkins delivers his lines much more emphatically and seems to be much more outward-looking. This makes it harder to pick up how exactly Christopher is “different” from the others instead of merely being a bright but difficult boy prone to tantrums. Gradually, we come to understand why Jenkins’s Christopher is the way he is and by Act 2 he has totally won over our sympathy.
Julie Hale as Siobhan is both Christopher’s teacher and the show’s narrator. The conceit is that Christopher has written a book of his experiences and she he reading sections of it to us as part of the play that has been made from the book. Luckily, Elliott does not push this metatheatrical angle too hard because we don’t need to be any more alienated from the alien world in which Christopher lives. Julie Hale is just as good as Rakie Ayola in London and, given Jenkins’s more aggressive Christopher, makes Siobhan feel even more central to Christopher’s life as a calming influence and source of comfort.
David Michaels and Emma Beattie play Christopher’s parents Ed and Judy as even more unbalanced and emotional than did Amanda Drew and Trevor Fox in London. This is an effective approach because it shows that Christopher, even as a “normal” child, is isolated. Both Michaels and Beattie show Christopher’s parents to be tormented by the past mistakes they have made, and this makes the final scene of forgiveness that much more powerful.
The rest of the cast – Bruce McGregor, Amanda Posener, Oliver Boot, Crystal Condie, Debra Michaels and Matt Wilman – play a wide range of characters and keep them all admirably distinct. Unlike the London cast, however, none of their creations particularly stands out. The cast’s great virtue is how they act as an ensemble and move together with such grace and precision as if in a dance. There’s no need to worry if you have not read the book. Marianne Elliott’s direction is so inventive and so theatrical that it will appeal to anyone who loves a great story thrillingly told. This is a definite must-see.
Suitable for ages 13+.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Joshua Jenkins as Christopher (centre) and company, ©2017 Brinkhoff/Mögenburg; Joshua Jenkin as Christopher and David Michaels as Ed, ©Helen Maybanks; Joshua Jenkins, Amanda Posener and Matt Wilman, ©2017 Brinkhoff/Mögenburg.
For tickets, visit www.mirvish.com.
2017-10-21
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time