Christopher Boone is 15 years old. He knows all the countries in the world and the names of their capitals. He likes outer space and prime numbers and dogs. But Christopher is suspected of murdering his neighbor's dog.
"The first thing, there's huge sounds and strobing effects and there's a dead dog on stage with a pitchfork, and I run out there and it all ceases because Christopher's just looking at this dead dog. It's like 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.' And then just staring."
FAQ
‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’
WHEN — 7 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday; 11 a.m. & 7 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. April 21; 2 & 8 p.m. April 22; 2 p.m. April 23
WHERE — Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville
COST — $35-$74
INFO — 443-5600, waltonartscenter.org
BONUS — Visit nwaonline.com/whats… for details about SEEK — a special program Thursday night for students and young professionals.
Adam Langdon brings Christopher to life in the stage version of Mark Haddon's novel, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" -- a part Langdon says is "once-in-a-generation."
"The thing I really just stuck with was finding the human in him, which I think is very, very evident," Langdon remembers his initial anxieties of being unintentionally disrespectful -- because Christopher falls on the autism spectrum. "One of the first things you hear is, 'If you've met one person on the spectrum, you've met one person on the spectrum.' And it's like the same with you and me -- you've met one human being, and that means you've met one human being."
Although Christopher's condition makes it difficult for him to communicate and understand others, his mind is quick, and he notices details other people tend to overlook. The audience has no trouble keeping up, though, because they watch the story unfold from Christopher's point of view.
The creators "wanted to make a show that the character Christopher Boone would enjoy and wouldn't find boring himself," says Tim Levy, the director of National Theatre America, who oversees the transfer of NT shows from the U.K. to the States.
Starting with an imposing, blank grid on the stage, the audience can see the way Christopher interprets everything happening around him.
"Bunny Christie (set designer) calls it a magic box," Levy continues. "Within that world is this myriad of illusions and lighting and LEDs and extraordinary projection. Bunny's desire was that if suddenly Christopher imagines he's in space, the set immediately becomes outer space. Or a train station. Or anything in between. It can be nothing and everything at the same time."
Both Levy and Langdon note how the show's bold, immersive stagecraft is unlike anything they'd seen before. The high-tech production takes the audience into the mind of someone who looks at the world a little differently, which is part of the reason Levy thought it was a good choice to share with American audiences.
"In some ways, 'Curious' is somewhere between a play and a musical. It's an event piece of theater, really," he says. "There's all these layers within the show and its choreography and its sound and light and design. Every single question was, 'Is this something Christopher would like? Or would he think this a cheat, or traditional or boring?' So I think that's one of the reasons it pushed the team to do such extraordinary work."
"It's like 'Hamlet' combined with Cirque du Soleil," Langdon adds. "There's a huge physical component to the play and that was another one of the main [reasons I thought I] could never do this play. But my favorite thing about Christopher is how brave he is. He does things I don't think any 15-year-old could do, and he does it with success. So he requires bravery of not only myself, but of everyone in the cast."
NAN What's Up on 04/14/2017