Stage Door - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 8:00AM Dancin’ Dan here with a quick run through one of the Tony front-runners in preparation for this weekend’s festivities! As a big fan of Mark Haddon’s 2003 novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, I was… concerned when it was announced that there was a stage adaptation in the works. Some books just don’t feel like they would translate to the stage, and this, with its singular first-person narration, certainly felt like one.
Director Marianne Elliott, who previously gave an astonishing humanity to wire puppets of horses in the sublime production of War Horse, outdoes herself here, asking everything of her collaborators both onstage and off. They all respond with quite possibly the most dazzling display of theatricality I have ever had the privilege to see. Think of anything that can be done on a stage, and it’s done here to tremendous effect (everything, that is, short of characters or props or set pieces flying over the audience): projections, hidden staircases, smoke machines, building a miniature of London onstage and then running an actual toy train along the train tracks, strobe lights, actors playing multiple characters, live and fake animals, meta-theatrics, interacting with the audience, entrances from the back of the house and the balcony, drawing in chalk on the set, using actors to represent furniture and water and practically everything in between… Curious Incident is practically an advertisement for the entirety of modern theater and its possibilities. It is thrilling in the best possible way, even from the dreaded “obstructed view” seats (where I sat).
While the play is a technical marvel, that does not mean it’s devoid of heart. Far from it. Recent Juilliard graduate Alex Sharp (making a staggering Broadway debut) is incredibly touching as Christopher Boone, a fifteen year-old autistic child who discovers his neighbor’s dog murdered one day and takes it upon himself to solve the mystery of who killed him. Yes, both the character as written and Sharp’s performance rely on some cliches (Christopher is a math genius but basic human interaction confuses him, and he does not like to be touched by anyone, including his parents), but when the production puts you so thoroughly into Christopher’s world, it’s easy to forgive a bit of cliche. It’s also helped tremendously by the performances of Ian Barford and Enid Graham as Christopher’s parents - how either of them missed out on Tony nominations for impeccable work is beyond me. While this is very much Christopher’s show - and Sharp gives a truly incredible performance - it’s also perhaps just as much an ensemble show (all the actors are constantly on stage, whether in character or helping Sharp move through the space).
But the true star of Curious Incident is the unbridled creativity of its staging. I’m sure that some day some enterprising community theater company will find a way to produce a “stripped-down” version of this that will keep the emotion of the piece intact (thanks to Simon Stephens’s well-done script), but I cannot imagine seeing another production of ANY show that will have the visceral impact this one has. There's one particular scene set in the London Underground that has absolutely no right to be as terrifying as it is. The whole thing is damn near cinematic in both concept and execution, and for a play that by necessity must remain on one stage, that’s a pretty impressive feat.
TONYS THIS SUNDAY: Six nominations (Play, Lead Actor, Direction, Lighting, Scenic Design, and Choreography) and a serious threat to win all of them. Even Choreography, where it’s possible that the big dance shows (On The Town and An American in Paris) end up splitting the vote, leaving an opening for Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett’s inventive work.
Reader Comments (6)
Not my cup of tea. It's totally going to win though.
It will absolutely win, although I am firmly a supporter of Hand to God, which possesses a far better script (why is there no Best Script/Text category for plays?! Best Play is really Best Production of a Play, which is not always the same thing).
Actually, Austin, that's not entirely true...
Unlike Best Musical, which goes to the Producer and really could be called "Best Production of a Musical", Best Play is actually given to the playwright... which is why I would also back Hand to God for Best Play as opposed to this. Yes, as you can see, I was kind of rapturous about it, but at the level of pure text, it's merely great, as opposed to ground-breakingly superb. It's really the production and direction that makes this what it is.
For what it's worth, I would also totally give Stephen Boyer the Tony for Best Actor in a Play for Hand to God. Alex Sharp is great here, but Boyer is GENIUS-level.
I wish, for consistency's sake, they would give Best Play to the producers as they do for Musical and start a new category for Best Script of a Play (or whatever you want to call it) as a great text can have a not-great production (and yet still be deserving of the award) and vice versa.
You singled out every reason why I thought this play was terrible, it's just TOO much of everything. It bends itself over *so* hard trying to win audience approval (the puppy! the train set! the over-explanation!), that "post-credits" scene was preposterous too, like begging kids to see why theatre can be as "cool" as a superhero movie, when in reality they are completely different mediums. I don't go to the theatre for cinematic experiences, I go to the movies for that.
On the bright side it did spark an interesting conversation about the nature of a good play vs. an impressive production, here in the comments and also after I saw it. If it was up to me and there were two categories, I'd say the Tony for production should go to "Wolf Hall", and the award for best text/script should go to the thought provoking "Hand to God".
Also, I agree Ian Barford was terrific!
Jose, I didn't see those things as "trying to win audience approval" at all! To me, it all looked like "how do we portray this on stage so that it feels not only true to the main character and his world, but in a way that hasn't been done before?" Because it isn't easy to put a lot of this stuff on stage (the entire Underground sequence), and while they could have gone the safe route and presented everything completely realistically, they almost went in the entire opposite direction. If anything, I feel like a lot of this would be more off-putting to an audience than not.
But then, I grew up in the theater, so I'm fully prepared to say that my enthusiasm for this production is directly proportional to that, and that not everyone will feel the same way.