Essay

There is a novel that is nationally famous called The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time. As the novel has gained popularity, people started modifying this novel into a different form; it has a play version. One of its play versions which I will talk about is featured by National Theater and played on Broadway. I watched the video about it "Working on the Spectrum: The Making of Curious   Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" and I found a few things that the directorial team employed as their own methods and I am going to talk about them. In the Broadway production of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time, the directorial team chose to develop the story in Christopher's perspective and lack the stage directions and settings but instead, use a lot of movements.

First, the Broadway production developed the storyline based on the Christopher's perspective. This would make the audiences fully see and feel like Christopher. In the novel, Christopher has an autism which is a mental disorder that impairs one's communication and interaction ability. This makes it necessary for the audiences to understand the story in that perspective and necessary for the castings to perfectly express that perspective. Therefore the directorial team emphasize on this aspect. As a result, they hired an autism expert to teach actors about how it feels like being autistic person and the actor himself who has the role of Christopher visited actual autistic people to learn about it, so that every single actor can express the feeling well. The team's thorough analysis about autism would let the audiences put themselves in the play. For example, because he hates to be touched, he even does high-five by touching fingers stretched, and when policeman grabs him to arrest him, he screams loudly. This shows Christopher's extreme autistic characteristic and the team might emphasize on this kind of scenes. I think the team's choice of developing Christopher's view is really great. This will enable the active interaction between the audience and the actors as well as deepen the understanding of the audience. 

Secondly, the directorial team intentionally used the lack of stage directions and settings which were suggested on the script. These include, for example, the sound effect, audience seat which is around the stage, and structural settings. These will open all the possible interactions between castings and the audience instead of just showing what is happening on the stage. The audience will think about each scene and breath the same air with the actors. However, instead of not using very sophisticated stage settings, this play uses a lot of technical and complex movements as the way of expression. This helps show the complexity and confusion inside of Christopher's head and somehow can fill the emptiness created due to lack of stage settings. I think this choice is really creative. I did not even think of not using what we are supposed to use. They basically broke my stereotype about directing a performance. Also I think using a lot of movements instead would create a different kind of entertainment to the audiences.