Connor's Lit and Perf Blog

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Reflection On November 15th, 2019, I saw Cheshire Academy’s Drama Club put on the production of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” by Simon Stephens in the Black Box Theater on campus. This production told told the story of a Boy named Christopher, who struggled with autism, and how he delt with family issues within his home, figuring out who he is as a person, and being held as a suspect for the murder of one of his neighbor’s dog. There were many themes in this play as well. The most important theme was the importance of self recognition. Early in the play, Christopher does not really know who he is. He has to struggle and go through many obstacles in order to find himself. But he persevered, got through the tough times, and by the end of the play he had a good idea of who he was as a person. I thought the director made great decisions when choosing staging, lighting, and sound. Firstly, the staging in this prod...

Christopher- got an A on his test, doesn’t talk to his father a lot when he’s in the house Ed- trying time work on his relationship with his son, Christopher, by trying to get him to talk to him more and he also got Christopher a dog, Sandy Judy- mother, attempts to comfort Christopher while his dad attempts to develop a relationship with Christopher Siobhan- talks to Christopher a lot about the test, helps him prepare for the test but also reminds him not to do specific things on the test like explaining why he got an answer Sandy- 2 month old golden retriever that Ed got the Christopher as a gift

Christopher- Autism, very literal, found at the scene with the dead dog, accused of killing the dog, son of Ed Mrs. Shears- Owner of the dead dog, angry, accuses Christopher of killing her dog Policeman- Not angry, just trying to figure out what happened with the dog, doesn't understand Christopher's condition, arrests him for assault Ed- Suspicious, father of Christopher, husband of a dead wife, tells Christopher not to search for who killed the dog Siobhan- Character in the present day, some sort of teacher to Christopher In opening scene, Siobhan and Christopher share the stage but represent two different scenes Who killed the dog? Siobhan almost represents as the narrator during the scene with the policeman

The first link, did a very good job of bringing the poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow” to life and giving us a visual description. This poem is very short. There are only 8 lines and each line only has a few words in it. In the performance, this group was able to go into greater detail and description through the use of the narrator. When I originally read the poem, I was very confused by it. The poem didn’t give a lot of information overall, and I could barely understand the meaning of it because of the lack of dialogue. When I saw this group perform, I was able to comprehend the message of the poem a lot easier and came away more satisfied than when I read the poem. Personally, I felt the performer and the narrator worked well by allowing the narrator to give a background description of what the performer was doing.  The second link did a great job of expressing emotion and a change of feeling, as expressed in the original poem. “I Too Am America” is a poem that is a great example o...