Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Simon Stephens, based on the novel by Mark Haddon.
Ethel Barrymore Theatre – June 13, 2016
💉💉💉💉 out of 5.
I have seen this play and loved it both times. This is a perfect example of using expressionism to really get inside the life of an autistic boy and yet still be meaningful to the audience. What struck me both times about seeing this play is PLAY: the wonderful, joyous practice of play that we adults abandon way to early for our own good. When is the last time that someone grabbed you by the waist and helped you play rocket ship around the living room? When is the last time someone held you above your head threatening to send you plunging into the bed below? Autistic or not – – why in the hell did we ever give up our sense of play?
I loved how you could sense that once play was once a simple blackbox creation of only using a few rehearsal cubes and a few committed actors to take a quite challenging novel and free it for the stage. Then, of course, that brought rightly earned success; which led to rightly earned Broadway; which led to rightly given big time budget and state of the art computer driven scenery – – which oddly enough led to success. So many times I have scene a relatively simply production simply die when it was translated to Broadway and someone through piles and piles of money at it. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time survived and thrived!
Two things struck me as I left the theatre. One was the rather brutal final line that said for all the brilliance of our autistic protagonist and a big, wonderful world out there for him to explore – life might just not be open enough, accepting enough for him to flourish and claim his win. Life judges everything!
Secondly, play. How do we keep the toys and the strong arms of a father that will allow you to play astronaut just a few years past your childhood prime.
Of course much could be said about the insights we get into the amazing and frightening world of autism. I will leave that to other reviewers. Play was enough for me.