The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Theater review

Despite the Sherlock-derived title and gruesome crime scene it opens with, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time solves the case relatively quickly. By the end of the first act we know whodunit (that is, impaled a pooch with a pitchfork) and we’ve gotten another revelation, this one having to do with the hero’s mother. But there’s a broader mystery raised by this dazzling and pulse-pounding drama: “How on earth did they do that?” By “that,” we mean how the British import translates Mark Haddon’s tricky 2003 novel—narrated by a 15-year-old boy who’s clearly on the autism spectrum—to the stage. Christopher John Francis Boone (Sharp) is a math savant with a fondness for the color red, who has difficulty interacting with people—he screams if you touch him. The strain of raising such a gifted but challenged child shows on his well-meaning but anger-prone father (Ian Barford), who one day informs the impassive boy that his mother had died. Later, Christopher finds the neighbor’s dog murdered, and decides to catch the killer. His journey leads him to London and into a sense-barraging sequence on the Underground.