The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Fifteen-year-old Christopher Boone, who is on the autism spectrum, has an exceptional mind: he is extremely attentive to detail, very good at mathematics and interested in space, but struggles to get along with his everyday surroundings, dislikes being touched and does not trust people. One night, seven minutes past midnight, the boy finds his neighbour Mrs Shears’s dog, Wellington, killed under mysterious circumstances. Feeling accused of the dog’s death, Christopher decides to find the real culprit, but has no idea where this strange incident will lead him.

While both Mark Haddon’s novel and Simon Stephens’s stage adaptation follow Christopher’s life from his own perspective, director Agnius Jankevičius proposes looking at the young man through society’s eyes. What do the people around Christopher tell us about him: his neighbours, the school principal, the local pastor, his mother and his teacher? And what can Christopher tell us about himself?

English writer Mark Haddon (born 1962) is best known for his novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, published in 2003 and soon an international bestseller (in Lithuania, the novel was published by Tyto alba in 2004 and republished by Sofoklis in 2020; translated by Birutė Bersėnienė). The novel has received more than 17 literary awards, including the prestigious Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. In The Guardian’s 2019 list of the 100 best books of the 21st century, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was ranked 19th. Mark Haddon also writes plays, children’s books, poetry, television scripts and radio dramas.

English playwright Simon Stephens (born 1971) has written almost thirty plays and stage adaptations of novels since the beginning of his career in 1998. His plays range from realism to poetic fragmentation, from storytelling to the new-noir style. His most critically acclaimed work is his adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play. Simon Stephens’s work is considered one of the main pillars of contemporary British theatre.

The project is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. In 2023, the production’s actor Emilis Pavilionis was nominated for the Golden Stage Cross in the Supporting Role category. In 2024, at the 15th Dalia Tamulevičiūtė Professional Theatre Festival, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time received the award for Best Festival Production for Children and Young People. At the 2024 COM•MEDIA International Theatre Festival, Toma Razmislavičiūtė received the Best Actress award for her role as Siobhan, the teacher.

Reviews of the production: Aušra Kaminskaitė, “On Integration into Doom” — LRT; “Caricatures and Introspection” — Menų faktūra (menufaktura.lt); “What Did the Shy Panevėžys Gynaecologist’s Wife Die Of?” (7md.lt). About the production: Marija Dautartaitė, “Games With and Without a Ball” (literaturairmenas.lt).