reflection

Liliena Storer

Lit and Perf

Curious Incident review

Play Review

I saw The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime for the first time on Wednesday the thirteenth of November in the black box theater at Cheshire Academy. To break it down the play starts with Wellington, the dog, dead on center stage. Christopher sits nearby as the actors portray how his mind works by moving around the stage. Mrs. Shears finds her dead dog and all hell breaks loose which leads to Christopher going to the police office. After a few arguments, Christopher is finally picked up and promises to mind his own business. His curiosity gets the best of him and he ends up walking around his neighborhood trying to find the murderer. This leads to him digging too deep into past events and finds out his mom cheated on his father and that she’s still alive. This causes a fight between Christopher and his father Ed. Christopher lost his trust with Ed so to win it back Ed buys Christopher a dog. I do personally find this interesting as we find out Ed killed Wellington in the first place.

One of the main reasons I was excited to watch this play was I wanted to see what the directors take on staging was. For starters, the stage was outlined in lights which I personally think was a very interesting idea. It helped me know where I'm supposed to be looking even when other actors were surrounding the stage. This leads me to my second observation. I really liked how the actors were around the outside of the lights. It added depth and it made for fewer distractions (actresses and actors leaving and entering the stage). I think they made the right choice of not having a lot of movement other than on stage. The plot can be confusing to follow even after reading the script. Another small detail was the lack of props. Some people may think it's annoying that there wasn’t a lot on the stage at one time. Personally, I think this was beneficial to really be able to pay attention to the conflicts and twists and turns throughout the production. The lighting during the performance was mostly to direct the audience's attention to important dialogue and it's helpful for people that get distracted.

 

One of the actors that really stood out to me was Willjam who portrayed Ed. As you probably I’m a sucker for actors that can take any role they are given and pour their heart into it until it feels so real. I was absolutely blown away by the emotion he presented. He really captured the father figure role for Christopher. I wouldn’t have directed it better myself. There were times I just looked at mia like holy moly this kid good. His anger and his sympathy were so good and at times he scared the crap out of me. It was interesting to watch him and it helped up when we had to do our own short performances. This lead to the moment I will never forget. The number one moment in the play for me was when Ed found out Christopher knew about what really happened to his mother. Willjam poured so much emotion and I felt it in my soul. When he slammed his hands down I almost jumped out of my seat so props to him.

In conclusion, I looked forward to seeing the director's interpretation of the play as we had seen other schools production. I highly enjoyed it and I encouraged others to go see it. Definitely, my favorite production so far that I've seen because I enjoy the suspense.