Tony Xu
Lit&Perf
Mrs. Guarino
11/19/2019
The growth of a boy
-review of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Last Friday, I watched the play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, in Blackbox. With the perfect performance by the actors and actresses, I truly felt the emotion and the theme of the play. This play mainly talks about a boy who has autism called Christopher somehow was accused to be the killer of a dog and he really desired to find out who killed the dog, but he was stopped by his father. Later on, he was involving himself into the conflicts. This is the first time Christopher entered the world of adults and he finally grew up at the end of the play, which shows the theme: the growth of a boy. Three scenes really impressed me a lot are when Chris found his mother was not dead, he went to London alone, and the last scene, which he and Siobhan discussed his future.
To begin with, the scene that Chris found her mother’s letters was incredible. Christopher sit on the ground and read his mother’s letters. Meanwhile, his mother appeared in every direction and told the audience about the content of the letters. That was like his mother’s face and tongue appeared in his head. It was really unacceptable for a kid who has autism. At that time, he truly felt complexity of adulthood. Later on, his father came in and discovered he was reading the letters. Maybe this moment, both his father and he did not know how to handle this. Therefore, his father told him that he killed the dog and his mother left them. Christopher’s heart had fallen apart after he heard that and screamed. For an autism kid who is not good at showing emotion, it was harrowing. That was the point that he made his own decisions and chose to leave his father, leave the home he used to live in. The scene showed on the stage was silent. All the words spoke out from his father were calm. However, the audience can truly feel the pain inside their hearts. The lonely lights illuminate him and his father, which made the scene more touching and felt the helplessness in Christopher’s heart.
Furthermore, another scene really impressed me is when Chris went to London by his own. This might be the first time he went outside without his parents. He asked other people for help, but the reply was impatient and indifferent. At the moment he was almost collided by a train, one stranger saved him. All the enthusiasm and indifference were undetectable. They might hurt one’s heart and heal one’s heart. Obviously, it was too early for Chris to aware that truth. On the stage, the strangers, the employees in the train station, and the passengers on the train passed by him, which shows at that moment, he was truly alone. However, he finally made it by asking others’ help and read the map. By that scene, the audience can feel that Chris had become more independent. He changed a little by this experience.
The last scene, which was about Siobhan and Christopher, is my favorite scene. In this scene, Siobhan asked his relationship with his parents and also gave him the A-Level grade. Later, Christopher told Siobhan what he was going to do in the future, which shows that he had begun to have his own idea. He would not be cheated and mislead by anyone. He has his own perspective about how to judge and handle a thing. The light on the stage illuminated on him, which was like the whole stage was his and he talked about his future. He pointed out that he wrote a book and Siobhan turned it into a play. That may explain why Siobhan was a narrator through the whole play. At last, Christopher asked Siobhan whether he could do anything and repeat 3 times, but there was no reply. The first time he asked her, Siobhan did not reply anything and walked further and further from Christopher. The second time he asked, there was not one but himself, although he called her name, there was still no reply. The first idea that came to my mind is Christopher’s ideas may never make any sense to Siobhan or anybody else. They just regarded him as a kid with autism. They did not give enough patience to treat him. The last time he repeats, the tone of him was hopeful, because at that moment, he truly changed. He could go to London by himself and solved mystery of who killed the dog. His own perspective had generated by this incident. However, the people around him were still indifferent to his ideas and not willing to listen to him patiently. That could be an irony in this scene. The ending was impressive, because it did not tell us what was going to happen on him. This kind of ending makes the play closer to the theme of this play, the growth of a boy. Because the ending has infinite possibilities like Christopher. He has infinite choices and possibilities in the future.
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