Few days before Christmas we went to our last theatre-related event of 2019 – “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” at Bucharest National Theatre. Once again, we went with no expectations and no idea what the play was about. We received the recommendation from a trustworthy source and we just went for it 🙂
The play was based on the book of same name by Mark Haddon. Before attending the play I hadn’t heard of the book before, so both the story and its staging were new to me. In a nutshell: I enjoyed the play a lot!
The mystery story was about an autistic 15-year-old teenager, Christopher, who described himself as “a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties”. Starting from the moment he discovered a dog in the night time, Christopher went through a series of (troubling) events in Sherlock style.
The play had a modern approach, using a very minimalist decor and many special effects – both visual and acoustic. These effects contributed a lot to illustrating (as much as possible) what was going on in Christopher’s head.
The special effects were also used as a means of depicting complex movements / events – for instance, in the image below it is shown how Christopher was going through a tunnel to the subway station. The actor was actually on the floor, moving as the lights were changing, and the whole image was projected on the screen in front of the audience. It worked amazingly well!
The actors performed very well, and here there was again a trick! Some actors took over multiple roles, for example the father of Christopher was also the policeman and other 2-3 minor roles. It was amazing how the actor’s tone and emotions changed in a matter of seconds! In total there were 5 actors for 10 roles.
To conclude, I recommend this play with all my heart! For me it was one of the most modern plays I’ve seen, and I liked a lot both the story of Christopher and the staging (especially the actors, the minimalist decor, and the visual and acoustic effects). Hats off!
‘Till next time … happy theatre-ing! 🙂
Georgiana
Images from TNB.ro
PS: Some logistical details about the play – it took place at National Theatre, Bucharest. The ticket was 40 lei/person (approx. 10 euro)
- Original name in Romanian: O întâmplare ciudată cu un câine la miezul nopții
- Actors: Ciprian Nicula, Emilian Oprea, Ana Ciontea, Rodica Ionescu, Carmen Ungureanu
- Translation: Andrei Marinescu
- Director: Bobi Pricop
- Adaptation: Simon Stephens
- Staging: Adrian Damian
- Costumes: Liliana Cenean
- Music: Alexei Turcan
- Video: Dan Adrian Ionescu, Mizdan
- Lighting design: Andrei Florea
- Technical directors: Silviu Negulete, Paul Tănase
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