The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

Mark Haddon has always maintained that his novel, first published in 2003, is not about “any specific disorder” but about “difference … about being an outsider, about seeing the world in a surprising and revealing way”. The young hero of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is 15-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone. He is bright, a “mathematician with behavioural difficulties”. But he doesn’t like being touched.  He takes things very literally. He reacts to noise and bright light. He is “different”.

Much discovered about “differences” like these since 2003 and about how people like Christopher react to various “triggers”. Director Hannah Goodwin and Belvoir St acknowledge that people in their audiences may have similar reactions. To that end, they provide a detailed “sensory friendly” guide to the “triggers” in this production. They are available in writing and online. As well, just before each production begins, the cast demonstrate how they will cover their ears or eyes to warn the audience when loud noises or bright lights are about to happen … and how the digital clock on the wall of the set will augment the warning.

In keeping with the personal narrative style of both the book and the play, Goodwin and designer Zoe Atkinson have kept the set open, suggesting the “social distancing” that is important to Christopher but also giving space to re-enact  the various ‘chapters’ of his quest to find who killed Wellington, his neighbour Mrs Shear’s dog. The only props are a table, two chairs … and Christopher’s book.

Daniel R. Nixon plays Christopher. He does so in a way that is beguilingly empathetic and plausible. He uses his eyes, his face, a special shift of his shoulders, studied quick gestures, a variety of walks and effectively telling changes in vocal tone and pitch. It is a remarkable performance that has been carefully and caringly developed. Nixon is a clever performer whose engagement with the audience in this play is as skilfully managed as the performance itself. He establishes Christopher’s wariness, naivety, perceptiveness, and superior ability as well as his appeal to others … and the effect of his rejection of them. It’s a challenge to achieve so much in an interpretation – but Nixon does it superbly.

Brandon McClelland plays his father Ed, a single parent anxious to do the right thing by his son but never quite able to accept his literal interpretation of words and events or his rejection of affection. McClelland makes Ed tentative but impatient, eager to do his best by Christopher but quick to anger at times – and remorseful when that anger turns his son against him. There is real anguish at times in his performance – a father who is confused by behaviour that is “different” and hard to manage.

Matilda Ridgway is Judy, Christopher’s mother. She is living away from the family in another relationship – but Ed has told Christopher she is dead. When Christopher finds hidden letters from her that explain she is alive and living in London, he shuns his father, braves his fears, and sets out to find her. Their eventual reunion shows the depth of their feeling for each other.

Ridgway’s Judy is caring, understanding, sensitive to Christopher’s quirks and eccentricities, ready to give up her new life to live in a bedsit with him and try to restore his trust in his father.

Siobhan, Christopher’s support person, friend and confidant is played with subtle understanding and compassion by Brigid Zengeni. She watches and listens carefully, advises gently but firmly, and relates warmly with the audience as she reads from Christopher’s book.

Ariadne Sgouros plays an indignant and angry Mrs Shears. Nicholas Brown plays her husband, with whom Judy is living in London and who greatly resents Christopher’s arrival. Tracy Mann is an aging neighbour, Mrs Alexander, whom Christopher rejects despite her gentle approaches to him because his father has told him not to speak to strangers. Roy Jospeh is a policeman – and the minister who supervises Christopher’s A level Mathematics exam.

All the cast are constants on the stage, watching, changing character, becoming a hiding place or a train; drawing a galaxy on a wall or covering their ears or eyes to warn of impending loud noises or arguments or flashing lights. And demonstrating Christopher’s solution to a curly maths problem in a sparkling dance after they have taken their bows. 

This is an incredibly aware interpretation of Stephens’ play. Its apparent minimalism disguises the thought, research and care that Hannah Goodwin and her team have taken to honour difference with warmth and humour – and clever, unpretentious theatricality.

It is hoped that some of the many HSC English students who are studying The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time can take time in the next few weeks to see Christopher’s story as revision of how the implications it makes can be interpreted so sensitively and wisely.

Carol Wimmer

Photographer: Brett Boardman