Everyone is Christopher

Olivia Cao

13 September 2015

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a famous book, and its play version is also popular all over the world. Mark Hadden wrote the book, and Simon Stephens adapted this story to a play version. The book tells us a story about a boy, Christopher, his parents, and a dead dog. In the play, Marianne Elliott was the director, and this team really brought some new ideas for this story. They made several good choices, but what I’m talking about is the biggest decision they made, which allowed this play to achieve a big success. The team made themselves be Christopher, because they really wanted the audience to feel they were also Christopher. 

The team felt they were Christopher, and they made this play extremely real. The director said that this story was a personal story, and everything was seen from Christopher’s eyes. (Marianne Elliott, Working on the Spectrum) Thus, they made themselves be Christopher, and they tried to think the way Christopher thought. To achieve this goal, they even hired an autism consultant to assist them to know Christopher and his thinking way. She gave the team much useful psychological help, which made Christopher’s characteristics more lively. For example, when Christopher arrived the Paddington Station, he was lost and confused. This was because Christopher never traveled by himself, and the station was so noisy. The noise and busy circumstance made Christopher nervous, and he could not filter out that much information. (Robyn Steward, Working on the Spectrum) Without the consultant’s analysis, I could not even understand why he was confused. After studying, the team, especially the actor, Luke knew exactly how Christopher felt at that time, so they made the scene very realistic and impressing. I think as a performer, the biggest achievement is to get the audience into the story, and this team actually made me “breath the same air that Christopher does”. (Marianne Elliott, Working on the Spectrum) In my opinion, I was completely impressed by this decision and the team’s professionalism. Indeed, they made a right decision, because everyone in the team was truly into the role. They made the play lively, in another word, they just put Christopher’s life on the stage. According to the above evidences, this decision made the play more realistic, and this allowed the audience to feel they were also in the story, not just a listener. 

In conclusion, it was so incredible that the team made the play this realistic. They felt themselves were Christopher, and they tried to imitated Christopher’s special thinking way. They got to know Christopher by studying autism, and they finally became Christopher. A bunch of people tries to perform this famous play every year, big or small, famous or ordinary, but why was this version so impressing? This is because the team actually brought the audience to the play. It was so realistic that they were not acting anything, they were putting their life on the stage, because they were Christopher. 

Citation: 

1. "Working on the Spectrum: The Making of Curious Incident and the Dog in the Night-Time." National Theatre. National Theatre, n.d. Web. 15 Sept. 2015.