Play Review

Ryan Purdy

IB Lit and Performance

I saw the play “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” on November 15th in Cheshire Academy’s black box. “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” was written by Simon Stephons. The play begins with a young boy finding a dead dog in his neighbor's yard, he is blamed for killing the dog and then makes it his journey to find the real killer. The play then tells the life of the autistic boy after he found the dog. It shows the struggles of raising an autistic child and the struggles the austic boy faces in life. The main themes of the play are “raising an autistic child”, “life of autistic children and the struggles they face”, and “raising a child as a single parent”.

Cheshire Academy’s play was very good in my opinion. The lighting was very interesting how it would focus on whoever was on the stage and talking. I also like how all actors who were not in a scene would sit on the side of the stage in the dark but yet still visible. I thought that having the people on the side was very unique. In my opinion the characters that CA’s play focused on were Christopher, Ed, and Siobhann because they were on the stage the most. During the transitions I really liked how their was music that was played in between scenes because it kept the transitions interesting. One more thing about the staging I really liked was all the writing on the walls that related to the play.   

When watching Cheshire Academy’s version of the play there were a few moments that were very memorable and stuck out to me. One moment during the play that was most memorable to me was when Roger went into Christopher’s room very drunk and tried to beat him. This moment was very memorable because in the play when Roger came onto the scene very drunk I thought it was pretty funny. I also think the actor did a really good job impersonating a drunk person. This moment also stuck out to me because of how loud the actor playing Christopher yelled when Roger tried to grab him and beat him. I think this scene was portrayed very well by the two actors making it also very memorable. I responded to this scene by being a little frightened by the screams made by Christopher’s actor but I was also very intrigued because it was a very interesting scene with a lot of commotion.

The actor that was my favorite and acted the best was Willjam. Willjam acted out Ed Christopher’s father. I liked Willjam the best because of how intense and into the play he was. He made the scenes seem not like acting and so realistic because of how well he acted and how intense he was. As an actor Willjam was funny, realistic, believable, natural, and emotional. I thought he did a very good job acting out Ed and he truly made the play unique with his acting. An example during the play when Willjam was very intense and that I liked a lot was when Ed was fighting with Judy over who Christopher should be living with. He was very emotional and spoke with a loud voice. He made me a little scared because of how real he made it seem.

I really enjoyed Cheshire Academy’s version of the play because it really brought the play to life for me. It gave me in image of all the characters and how their acting would look like. It was much better than just reading the play. Yes, I thought the rest of the audience seemed to enjoy the play. One thing I learned about theater is that acting is not just memorizing the lines and putting on a costume, theater is literally being that person and living out the life of the character you are acting out.

Links for CI presentation

https://youtu.be/fNjmUNAFKAM (Second Part)

https://youtu.be/plTSTCH4aAI (First Part)

CI Notes

Characters:

Ed: Christopher's dad, trying to talk to Christopher has present for him

Christopher: Ed's son,  is upset and doesn't want to talk to Ed, his rat died and he doesn't think he did well on his math test even though he ended up getting an A

Siobhan: Chris's teacher and seems to be in two scenes at once?

Judy: Ed's wife, Chris's mom, makes Chris tell Ed he doesn't think he did well on his math exam.

Sandy: Christopher's new golden retriever 

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- Christopher talks to Siobhan about his dreams of going to a university after getting an A on math test

Plot:

Conflict is between Ed and son Christopher. Christopher won't talk to Ed. Ed gets Christopher a golden retriever to make it up to him.

CI Notes

Character:
Christopher: is Ed's son, has autism, was at scene with dead dog, accused of killing the dead dog.
Mrs. Shears: owner of dead dog, very angry because her dog is dead, is the one accusing Christopher
Policeman: questioning Christopher about what happened to the dog, he doesn't know about Chris having autism and arrests him for assaulting him.
Ed: father of Christopher, he tells Christopher to no search for the killer of the dog, husband of a dead wife.
Siobhan: some kind of mentor or teacher for Christopher, seems like he is inside of Christophers head?

Plot:
- Mrs. Shears finds Christopher standing next to her dead dog in her garden
- Calls the cops and Christopher gets arrested

Staging:
In the first scene Christopher and Siobhan are both on stage and talking at the same but about things even though they are sharing the stage.
It is like there is 2 scenes going on but one stage.

Theme: A boy struggling with autism who is facing troubles

Poem Response

In Lili and Amy’s performance they emphasize a couple of things from the original poem. In their performance the white chickens and red wheelbarrow were emphasized from the original poem. I believe they chose to emphasize these two things because they were the most important subjects in the poem. I think that Lili’s and Amy’s performance makes me think a lot differently about the poem because when I first read the poem I did not really understand it all. After seeing Lili’s and Amy’s performance I now have a picture and story of what the poem means and what it represents. Lili’s and Amy’s performance accomplished a lot by bringing it to the stage. One big thing they accomplished was giving the viewers an image of the poem. Another thing their performance accomplished was giving the viewers an inspiring story about a young girl who grew up on a farm from just a 16 word poem. 

In Connor, Lauren, and Mia’s performance they emphasize the dark brother who is being forced to eat in the kitchen. They also emphasized the dark brothers confidence. I believe they chose to emphasize the dark brother because he is the main character in the poem. I think they chose to emphasize the dark brothers confidence because the brothers confidence is the most important factor in the poem and Their group performance made me think differently about the poem because the performance shows you to stick up for yourself and the poem shows that confidence is key to getting what you want. Their performance did not accomplish a lot by bringing the poem to the stage because the poem was exactly like the performance. Their performance did accomplish bringing the poem to life and giving the viewers an image of what the poem might look like if performed.