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The Nighttime Comparison

Decent Essays

The book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon and its play adaptation showcase the coming-of-age story of a boy named Christopher who is not only dealing with autism, but a dysfunctional family as well. The book gives the reader a glimpse on how Christopher’s mind works and has the reader sympathize with his hardships. Likewise, the play trailer shows that the director chose to follow a similar adaptation of the book. The director, instead of portraying the happenings in the external world, chooses instead to show Christopher’s internal thoughts and reactions to better illustrate to the audience the way Christopher sees the world, and helps the audience better sympathize with Christopher. One instance of this is the set design. The set itself is a gridded cube, and the use of the grid throughout the play emphasizes the logic of Christopher’s thoughts rather than on what other characters think. The stage’s use as seen by the trailer is for Christopher to not only interact with other people but for drawing maps and diagrams, as well as give a visual representation of the way his mind works; it’s mathematical, neat, and simple. However, people are not as neat, and as …show more content…

In the book, Christopher enters the park with Mrs. Alexander and when “we were inside the park Mrs. Alexander stopped walking.” (p. ) The director chooses to show this scene with Christopher and Mrs. Alexander sitting down and instead of a park or the use of trees/shrubbery, the two are sitting on plain white cubes on the floor. Christopher’s main focus on the conversation is not the trees, the sound of birds in the park, nor any other detail that others might focus on. Instead, his mind is set on only the conversation at hand. This helps the audience understand what Christopher part of an interaction he values when engaging with

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