Review of play--Amy Yang

Amy Yang

Review of the play

IB Lit & Perf SL

Ms.Guarino

Tears Of Love

On November 15th 2019, I watched a drama, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” in the Black Box at Cheshire Academy. It was written by Simon Stephens. The student director is Olivia Williamson and faculty advisors are Ms.Guarino, Mr.Hunton and Ms.Roller. The main actors are Amelia Williams, Olivia Williamson, William Lempling, Pacifica Yang and Ben Goth. This production talks about a  series of stories about fifteen-year-old boy with autism,Christopher, and his family. The play started with a dead dog in the center of the stage and Christopher was next to the dog. Mrs.Shears, the god owner, was so upset to Christopher because she thought Christopher killed the dog and she called police. Then an interesting story began.

First, I like this play both from story side and acting side. From the story side, even it is not a normal family. The kid had autism and parents were cheating on each other. But this story shows what happening in our real life. And also these bad things that highlight Christopher’s persistence and sincerity. He insisted on finding the killer of the dog, he insisted on finishing the math test...These are valuable qualities that adults lack. His father asked him not to go after who killed the dog and lied to him. His mother cheated, too. Christopher shows his personalities as an autism child. From the acting side, I think the details of the actors are very good. I can know the emotions of actors through their expressions and movements. The audience can see the meaning of every action of the actor. For example, I observed that Christopher’s eyes contact are different. He doesn't make eye contact with strangers or neighbors when he is talking to his neighbors. He always keeps his eyes on the ground which shows his autism character. Moreover, Christopher was groaning when the police asked him questions. This detail also shows his difference. Whether from the action, or the scripts, audiences are touched by our actors.

I've always believed that roles have no priority. Every role plays a very important role in a play. From Number forty, who had relatively few lines, to Christopher, who had the most lines, the audience felt the passion of every actor. But I like Amelia the most. The first thing that amazed me was Amelia had memorized all lines and there were millions of scripts. Moreover, most importantly, there are a lot of different demands on this character. This is not a common character type in daily life, but Amelia needs to imitate an autistic person as much as possible. Amelia needs to imitate the language, thinking and action of an autistic person. I noticed that Amelia spoke her lines very quickly, which may be a characteristic of autistic people. And I mentioned before that Amelia doesn't make eye contact with strangers when she is talking to strangers. What's more, her behavior and thinking mode also show that she is different from others. She insisted on what she wanted to accomplish. She can't lie...It's a challenging role. There are great demands on the performance ability of the actors. Amelia performed very well. I even cried when she threw the letters. 

I have my own ideas about a piece of the play. It was the part of Christopher’s mother, Judy, reading her apology letter to Christopher. It's a long clip. But it was mom's monologue. It was like Christopher’s mother could see Christopher, but Christopher was playing with his blocks. From my personal understanding, this is an affectionate and sincere apology. From a mother's point of view, if a mother wants to say something serious to her child, there should be less physical activity. Mom should be very nervous and careful. She should be telling her true feelings with emotion, trying to make her child forgive her for doing wrong things. Perhaps only a mother's tender eyes, a sobbing words or a small movement, can let the audience really feel the love of this mother. On the contrary, if there is too much action, the audience will be interrupted. The audience's attention was focused on Christopher, and mother shouldn't have too much movement at this time. Otherwise it's a little messy on stage. This will interrupt the audience's thinking and feelings, and make the audience unable to concentrate emotionally. Just imagine if you were a mother, would you move around apologizing to your child or telling your story? The above advices belongs to my own immature idea of acting. I was impressed because it was a scene that made me cry. Christopher listened to his mom's letter and then he threw it all over the place, and I started crying. Because Chris had been building blocks before, and this sudden outburst was in stark contrast. He was still a kid and he could not bear that much. 

Overall, I would like to thank Cheshire Academy for the play. I am a very, very, very passionate student of acting. I was, am, and will continue to be an actor. My mom always told me to choose a career that I would never get bored and enjoy for my whole life. I think acting is the only thing I'm willing to do for the rest of my life. So every time I watch a play, I get so excited, and every time the actors call it a curtain call, I cry. This is a great play, with very good actors, directors, and stage crews!