How Did I Feel About the Fall Play?

I attended Cheshire Academy’s production, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time on Friday November, 15th in the Black Box Theater. The play was written by Simon Stevens. The advisers were Jennifer Guarino, Ben Hunton and Emily Roller. Amelia Williams starred as Christopher Boone, Olivia Williamson portrayed Siobhan, Willjam Lempling played Ed Boone, Pacifica Yang acted the role of Judy Boone and Ben Goth portrayed Roger.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time follows Christopher Boone, a 15 year old boy with autism. The play begins with Christopher trying to discover who killed the neighbor's dog, Wellington. The play later focuses on the struggles Christopher encounters because of his autism and the issues he has within his family. The play is a coming of age story as Christopher grows to become more brave and independent. The play is also an Individual vs Society story because he is seen as different than the other people around him. As much as he struggles to understand the people around him, those people struggle to figure out him. The approach that is taken in this performance was to show that not everyone with autism is exactly like Christopher and his family. They wanted to represent each character and not hide their imperfections because that's what makes them who they are. 

The play had a very good amount of props. I liked the choice to have Siobhan look down at Christopher's book. I also liked how there were actual letters which made the scene where Amelia threw them on the floor so much more impactful. I noticed how Christopher was positioned in the middle of the stage often. This is important because he was the most important character in the play. I liked how Wellington was a fake so that he would stay still but Sandy was real. I liked this because I don't think the scene would have been as emotional if Sandy was fake. I liked how Christopher was dressed in just a red hoodie. It reminded the audience that he was a teenager and not a little kid.

Overall, my favorite scene was the train station scene. The noises and lighting made it extremely realistic. It felt like I was actually watching people on a real train. In my opinion Willjam did the best job portraying his role. Christopher’s father who goes through a roller coaster of emotions throughout the play. For that reason I believe he had the most challenging role. There are moments where he is really loving and others where he is extremely angry. Willjam did a very good job of expressing these emotions throughout the performance. I was very impressed by how realistic his emotions were. He sounded a lot like an angry father when yelling at Amelia and sounded like he was furious at Pacifica when screaming at her. He was able to do this by changing the volume of his voice from soft spoken to loud and by choosing specific actions to match the emotion of frustration. 

I really enjoyed this performance of the play. I feel all the actors did a very great job portraying their roles which made every scene very believable. I noticed all my friends were paying attention and enjoyed it. I learned a lot about the theater from watching this performance. Prior to coming to Cheshire Academy, I did not know what a black box theater was. I had only seen performances on Proscenium stages so I found it very interesting  to see how a production could be different and similar in the black box.