Thursday 29 October 2015

Differences


I was asked by William Rycroft at Vintage to answer a series of questions about Curious Incident, and how the book differs from the play. I think it was Peter Ustinov who said that only when you're interviewed do you discover how you feel about things. Anyway, here's what I said:


Throughout the book Christopher Boone has rituals like spotting coloured cars; do you or any of the other actors have any rituals before you go on stage?
 
Rituals before going on stage, and preparation in general, are very personal things: they're often unique to each actor and it's quite important to let people get on with theirs, whatever they may be. I've personally never been the kind of actor who needs to stare at the wall to get into character or whatever. I went to LAMDA: we were implicitly taught not to take ourselves too seriously, I think. Although, to be fair, that does depend very much on the material. If you're doing something naturalistic, it's often quite helpful to have some time to yourself before you go on. But, for me, this play is so much about quick transitions. You're this, then you're that. Scenes end and begin like the snap of fingers. So, with this more than any show I've ever been involved in, I'm talking all sorts of nonsense right until the millisecond my foot hits the stage. To be honest, I should probably be a bit more sensitive to others about it. Because, for those who are getting into character, it's probably quite annoying.

Has being in the play made you approach the book in a different way?

Being in the play hasn't really made me approach the book differently, to be honest. I must be the only person in the western hemisphere who, until a year ago, hadn't actually read Mark Haddon's book. So my ingestion of the book and the play occurred very much in tandem. They complement each other brilliantly - Simon Stephens is incredibly faithful to Mark's material: much of the dialogue is repeated verbatim - and, to be honest, it's got to the point now where I can't really remember what's in the play and what's in the book. Mark Haddon said to me a while back that it's the same for him, funnily enough.

Do you have a favourite character in the book and why?

 

I don't really have a favourite character in the book; most actors would say the character they're playing, but for me Roger Shears is such a gigantic loser. The relationship between Christopher and his mother is something that I find very moving, though. There's a beautiful dimension to Mark Haddon's Judy Boone which, because it's written, can only be perceived from reading. When you look at her letters to her son, there are very slight and subtle spelling and grammar mistakes. You wouldn't know that from our production because these are simply read by Gina Isaac, who plays Judy. But what comes across from that character in the book is that she might be dyslexic and have slight learning difficulties herself. I think that's a beautifully understated bit of character: that she, like her estranged son, doesn't easily fit with societal norms, standards and conventions. Also, it makes her very raw and human. There's something more pure about her emotions in the way that they're expressed in these very long, ungrammatical sentences. And, in my head, it binds those two characters together in a way that is unique to the book. That said, I think somehow Gina manages to put that across: in the touchingly clumsy yet heartfelt way she reaches out to Christopher in our production.  These characters – particularly the parents – are such beautifully flawed human beings that it just makes them more and more real to me.

Are there any moments in the book that didn’t make it into the play but that you wish had?

 

Something which fans occasionally feel compelled to point out is that there's much more Sherlock Holmes in the book than there is in the play. There's a whole chapter devoted to The Hound of the Baskervilles, for example. I was fully expecting Mark Haddon, when we met him, to be an enormous Christopher Boone-esque Conan Doyle fan that took Holmes very much as his inspiration for elements of the story – including its title – but it's funny how things like Holmes and Watson stopping for tea in Swindon in that story are just lovely little moments of serendipity; even though they seem somehow predestined.

Which aspects of the book do you think were most important in the staging of the play?

 

The most important aspect of the book, and the reason that it was universally agreed that it could never be successfully translated onto the stage, is that it gets inside its protagonist's head, in a way that reminds me of Faulkner, Conrad or Salinger. Somehow, through methods best known to themselves, Simon Stephens managed to do this in alliance with director Marianne Elliott and designer Bunny Christie. For my money, this achievement cannot be overstated – it's the reason that people respond in the way that they do to our play. It's properly stylised, interactive and immersive theatre that grabs anyone who's ever grappled with how to fit into their environment, how to grow up or how to parent a child. We can get hung up on the whole portrayal of autism: this play is about all of us.

Approaching the end of this phenomenal tour, what part of the story will you take away with you?

 

As this enormous tour winds down into its final weeks, I'm beginning to realise that it'll be a unique job in my career: probably the one that I'm most proud of above all others, although I'll need the dust to settle a bit for the objectivity of that to become fully clear. I'll remember that, in Liverpool over five days in July, we played to as many people as the West End cast plays to in a month. I'll remember Sarah, the teenager who wrote to Joshua Jenkins to say that his performance meant so much to her that she was coming again, with her parents, so that her friends and family might understand her more. And I'll remember Josh's definitive, towering performance as Christopher. As far as I'm concerned, there aren't enough good things that can be said about him as an actor. I know that many people have played and will play this part, but I simply cannot imagine that there's anyone else to touch him.

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