Review: ‘Curious Incident,' about autism, demonstrates the power of great direction

San Francisco Chronicle​

10-05-2025

The hallmark of Susi Damilano direction is joie de vivre. When the producing director of San Francisco Playhouse helms a show, it bursts with delight in the small and ordinary. You picture her encountering a crabby or loathsome character in a script and marveling at how one strand of humanity weaves into the rich texture of our world.
Yet this quality alone does not cover the extent of her skill. Damilano also has the high-flying imagination and the communicative power to make her vision contagious, and all those talents are on splendid display in 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,' which I saw Friday, May 9.
Simon Stephens' adaptation of Mark Haddon's bestselling 2003 novel is about a teenage boy with a condition that's never named but that looks a lot like autism. To realize the world of Christopher (Brendan Looney) as he decides to investigate the gruesome killing of his neighbor's dog, Damilano marshals the full power of theatrical design and straight-play choreography. When the word 'dead' is first pronounced, a whole ensemble positioned about the perimeter gasps. When an overwhelmed Christopher crouches and moans, the ensemble joins him, rocking back and forth.
That superlative cast morphs into not just a flurry of supercilious neighbors, overager classmates and harrumphing strangers but their inanimate surroundings, too. Thanks to the inspired movement direction of Bridgette Loriaux, they're the garish signs and advertisements that overstimulate Christopher's senses. They're the trundling train he tries to take by himself for the first time and the waves his mother (Liz Sklar) dives under at the beach. They're a buzzing electromagnetic field, the furniture in Christopher's household, a space capsule hoisting Christopher above earth's orbit and the Tetris blocks of his favorite video game.
When Wiley Naman Strasser as Christopher's neighbor flings open his door, beady eyes darting, posture coiled as if to protect his drug stash, a whole addled, washout life materializes. When Laura Domingo as a friendlier neighbor dodders and trembles, you see not just her character's dotage but the climate of fear and repression that prevails in their neighborhood.
Actors in larger roles are just as strong. Looney nails the way Christopher has always steamrolled through life at the same pitch, choosing just the right moments as the mystery unfurls to show how his character slowly realizes he doesn't always have to tell the thorough, literal truth at every moment. When his father, Ed (Mark P. Robinson), asks if he's going to behave, Christopher's 'yeah' becomes two syllables, the second trailing off a cliff of unshared plans.
Sophia Alawi, as Christopher's teacher Siobhan, is saddled with much of the show's narration, but she finds ways to make it ferocious as she channels her pupil's voice — the way an adolescent might finally spill innermost thoughts to the stars after clutching them close to the chest.
And the incisive adaptation itself models the art of suggestion. Flights of fancy into outer space say what cannot be said. Seeds of doubt and clues percuss with the precision of a symphony score. Emotional beats tighten, then pluck, your heartstrings as if they knew your deepest yearnings.
The world pegs Christopher — with his inability to read social cues, his tendencies to pee his pants, recoil at touch and bay when he loses control — as the abnormal one. But 'Curious Incident' points out that the very fact that he doesn't make the assumptions most people do makes him a great detective, even as the mystery he's solving expands to cover his whole cosmos. It also demonstrates that everyone in Christopher's life is deeply flawed in their own way, burdening their loved ones, but maybe still worthy of forgiveness for it.