Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime By Mark Haddon

The Book, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, was written by Mark Haddon in 2003, which was later rewritten for a stage adaption by Simon Stephens in 2015. The Story follows a young boy, Christopher in his efforts to solve the murder of his neighbor’s dog, who struggles to deal with the people around him and his inability to process social constructs and human emotion. The author of the book Haddon, doesn’t establish the autism Christopher has in order to allow the audience to not immediately label him, instead Christopher is described as having an “extraordinary brain”.
The Play Provides an insight in to the mind of someone with Autism or other mental illnesses. It’s hard to imagine what people are going through when you don’t know what’s going on or how they function. The process of figuring out what makes people who they are and why the react the way they do is a very intimate thing, and is extremely rewarding giving an insight into who they really are and heart of their internal struggles. In order to truly to understand Christopher, his thoughts and inner struggles need to be visible to decipher. Experiencing Curious Incident gives an accurate insight to how an individual with Autism thinks and processes. An example of this is, “2; 4; 8; 16; 32; 64;
128; 256; 512; 1024; 2048; 4096; 4096; 4096… Father had killed Wellington. That meant he could murder me. I had to get out of the house.” (Stephens 37). The author, Mark Haddon, had worked with Autistic Children and uses the information he knows from his experience to create the world of Christopher’s.

Autism has been looked down upon for a long time. The individuals bearing such a “disease” was viewed as tainted and impure. In fact, in 1960’s a woman named, Eustacia Cutler had a daughter with autism was looking for an institution to place her daughter in said this, “However intelligent I think I am, however charitable and reverent of life, lodged deep in my mindless dreams is a clammy anxiety over these poor beings. Fearing the very sight of them may cause some horrid contamination, I, too, want them shipped off. Out of sight.” (Sarris). Children with Autism or any other illness were seen as less than human. Fortunately, now in the U.S. we have better programs and treatments for Autistic kids. But, the stigma hasn’t ended. The public’s reaction is the problem, "’It is very difficult to walk with your disabled child in the street. Everyone leaves what they are looking at or doing and starts watching your kid. You feel like you are the star of a puppet show.’" (Sarris). There’s room for change. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime can be the spark for a change of heart toward respect for the battle Autistic Children and their families go through.
A major concern of the author, Mark Haddon, is that people are using the play/novel as a textbook answer for how autistic kids are.
They don’t allow any room for their own imagination. The article by Singh explains the authors thought on the subject, “It is used as a textbook for social workers, and for policemen, which is something I heard recently. I never meant it to be a textbook. I’m a little worried if people are saying, ‘If you want to work out how to treat people on the spectrum, read this novel’” (Singh). This show although it gives a great insight, it wasn’t designed to be the answer key to everyone. Research should still be done to know and understand truly, because not everyone is the
same.
William Schofield is an 18-year-old who has Asperger syndrome, he read Curious Incident of the dog in the nighttime and wrote a review on it. He says, “I think that Mark Haddon may not have intentionally set out to write about someone with this particular condition as he frequently just describes Christopher as having "some sort of disability", but may have ended up doing it anyway; the similarities are very convincing between Chris and me especially, in my opinion.” (Schofield). In his review he found no fault in the character of Christopher that Mark Haddon created. William was very happy that Haddon drew from his own experience and didn’t rely on the textbook description of a child on the spectrum.
The Play being labeled as a feel-good show can be somewhat dark. When reading or watching, the audiences’ heart is wrenched in the lost mind of Christopher. In the article by the New York Times, the author acknowledged the darkness of the play the lies that are hidden in the text. For instance, “‘It’s going to be all right,’ grownups keep telling Christopher in bruised self-betraying voices. No, it’s not and on some level Christopher will always know this, more piercingly than we can afford to acknowledge.” (Brantley). Within the darkness of the situation surrounding Christopher and the emotion felt, the audience is gifted with a humble heart and “feel-good” emotions.
Curious incident of the Dog in the nighttime is currently now on tour in the US. The 2015 Tony Award winner, is a must see. The Broadway show first opened on October 5th, 2014. The Chicago Tribune had many thing to say about the show, “I still consider this production a distinguished piece of international work and, thanks I think to Stephens' own background as a teacher, a piece that functions as a tool to help anyone and everyone better understand those different from themselves. No better moment for that.” (Jones). Jones from the Chicago Tribune, went on to say he was lost in the change of actors from Broadway to the touring show and his preference for the Broadway Actor Alex Sharp, and his giftedness for creating a realistic vulnerability in Christopher.
Giving this show the stage is an honor and a huge responsibility, one that should not be taken lightly. What the audience sees in the hands of the artists involved. This play would be a fun challenge, one I would love to take on. Simon Stephens made some interesting choices when he wrote the stage adaption. In his version, Siobhan was reading some of Christopher’s thoughts as if they were being read from the book he was writing. While is sounds very neat, it seems as if the audience might get to confused at what was Christopher and what wasn’t. I would re-write it to be set up to move through the day with Christopher, rather than feeling like abrupt short scenes. When reading the letters from his mother, she would be on stage “talking to him”. I would dress the stage for the mind of Christopher. Moving and flipping set pieces with everything being made of numbers. When his character is thinking or processing things the stage becomes his thoughts you see him calculating things and how he works. Costumes would be changed when they are in Christopher’s mind they become chaotic. Lots of patterns with numbers and plaid designs. A fun aspect would be adding in drones flying overhead flashing numbers and images adding to the chaos of his mind. Overall the play is complicated, but would be extremely rewarding if done right.