The third play we saw was "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". I wanted to get the title completely right because doing so is in the spirit of the hero of the play. He is a 15 yr. old teen who is, as they say, "on the spectrum." Some of the medical categories invented to diagnose various stages and cousins of autistic conditions were recently collapsed into the concept of a range or spectrum of difficulties, ranging from very severe limitations in speech and ability to communicate to less severe troubles, such as the type shown by Benedict Cumberbatch in the British tv show "Sherlock" and by Johnny Lee Miller in the American tv show "Elementary". Probably the best known rather deep-state example of autism is the professor of animal science at Colorado State, Temple Grandin. The HBO movie by that name is a fine start to seeing what it is like to raise an autistic daughter in a time when the condition was less understood or to grow up trying to learn to handle oneself, one's body, one's nervous system and, most importantly, all of one's interactions with other people.
Talking and extracting meaning from spoken language is not the strong point of people on the spectrum. Somebody stuck a pitchfork in a neighbor's dog and killed him. Many of the neighbors suspect 15 yr. old Christopher, who never seems quite right. However, Christopher has the very big benefit of loving parents and a loving, skilled therapist. His natural intelligence, his strength, energy and desire to live right have coupled with his understanding of people and morality to focus his attention on studying the situation and working out who did actually kill the dog. If someone kills a dog, that person should be punished and Christopher understands that.
Christopher has trouble with metaphor and symbolic language of any kind. A kindly but nervous neighbor lady says,"I don't think I should see you right now" and he immediately puts his hand across her eyes. He can get overwhelmed trying to figure out what to pay attention to and what it all means. The audience hears a loud "Pow!" and everything goes totally black then.
The book, by Mark Haddon, has been very popular worldwide. The older Professor Don Tillman, professor of genetics, in the books "The Rosie Project" and "The Rosie Effect" by Graeme Simsion are funny, if you are looking for something less gripping. Lynn and I lost a daughter to mental illness and brain cancer, conditions that are very different from being on the spectrum but we felt for the parents and for Christopher. We have an understanding of the tensions and stresses of dealing with a youngster you love and who must struggle to live.
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