The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

I came to Encore’s production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time with no preconceptions as this is a play I had not seen before in any professional or community theatre productions and I had not read the book.  I was however confident that I would be in for an entertaining and thought provoking evening with the cast and production team including many people that I either know, or have performed with, or have seen in other productions across the East Midlands.

Written in 2003, The Curious Incident .. is a play viewed through the eyes of its main character Christopher John Francis Boone, a teenage boy who is described as "a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties".

I won’t document the whole plot here but will just say that to be a complete success I think it is critical that the individual taking the role of Christopher has immersed themselves in the character to such an extent that they and able to make the audience see the world from a new, incredibly logical perspective.  A world where any unexpected deviations from this logical framework are unacceptable and incredibly frightening.  This production, I’m delighted to say, had just such an actor in Arden-Caspar Jennison. 

Arden’s portrayal of Christopher was simply flawless.  Arden ensured that we instantly were brought into Christopher’s world view which made complete sense of the edgy/off-centre characterisation of the rest of the people in the play as we see them filtered through his eyes.   It’s hard to identify any one element that made this a very special performance because it had to have so many facets to be believable.  His performance had light, shade, vulnerability, joy, fear, logic and love.  Although Christopher initially only dealt in absolutes Arden showed us Christopher’s growth and a new found ability to embrace life’s ambiguity and still function.

Although Arden’s performance was pivotal the strength of the direction and quality of the ensemble cast took the production to the next level.  Laura Thurman gave Siobhan (responsible for Christophers concentrated assistance at school) an approachable and sympathetic warmth in every scene where she provided a safe-space for Christopher to work through life’s complexities. 

Stuart Bull managed to bring out both the warmth and frustration of being a single parent for Christopher.  A boiler engineer with a short fuse that could erupt into physical but rarely emotional violence, Stuart managed to ensure the audience understood Ed’s devotion to his son and his protection, as well as his own weaknesses.

Danielle Hall provided another of the strongest performances of the night as Judy, Christopher’s mother.  She showed the audience how Judy had found the emotional pressures of this challenging family life too much to bare resulting in her leaving two years ago to protect her mental health.  A nuanced characterisation that again ensured that Judy was a completely believable person and not a caricature.

The other members of the ensemble cast thrived in their multi-rolling throughout the night and without ever going over-the-top, brought just the right stylised/fantastical edge to their performances being seen through Christophers eyes.  I particularly enjoyed Paula McCrory’s Mrs Alexander, Hayley Wood’s Mrs Shears, JK Smith’s Duty Sergeant, Ben Sherwin’s London Policeman, Daisy Donoghue’s No 40, Jane Harris’s Reverend Peters and Nicola Tuxford’s Auntie Terri.

So a play full of great acting but I cannot end without complimenting Adam and Chrsitopher, not only on all the hard work in the rehearsal rooms that made this possible, but also on the staging and lighting that ensured that the action moved seamlessly between the many episodes of Christophers journey.  Clearly the constraints demanded by the rights holders that the production must be unique was embraced as a strength by the team!

Finally I couldn’t end without saving that the “mathematical proof” CODA was literally a work of genius from cast and production team alike!  Many congratulations on this gentle, uplifting, laugh out loud tour-de-force.  Fried-Gold

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.