One of the central messages of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is that parents are human beings who make wrong choices even if they love their children. We can see this with Christopher’s parents as they try to navigate their relationships with each other and with their son.

Christopher’s mother left his father because she was having an affair with their neighbor. She has moved to London but wants to remain in contact with her son, for she writes him letters every week. Christopher, however, never receives those letters. His father, acting out of his own deep pain, has told his son that his mother is dead. He hides the letters in his closet. Christopher’s father is also having an affair of his own with the wife of the neighbor.

When Christopher discovers all of this, he loses his trust in his father, understandably, since his father has been lying to him all this time. The boy goes to London to find his mother, but there is conflict there as well, for his mother’s significant other is not comfortable having the boy around. At this point, Christopher’s mother must make a choice, and she chooses her son. She leaves her lover and returns with Christopher to their hometown, where they get an apartment. She has decided that her son is more important than her lover.

Christopher’s father is repentant and desperately wants to regain his son’s trust. He gets Christopher a puppy as a gift of apology and peace, and Christopher is thrilled. By the end of the novel Christopher has learned that parents are people, too, and he has reestablished his relationship with both of his parents. Parents are not perfect, but when they love their children, they learn from their mistakes and grow along with them.

How is growing up presented in the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time?

Growing up is hard to do, as they say. But it's particularly hard if, like Christopher, you happen to be autistic. Christopher experiences the world in a way different from those who aren't autistic.

Inevitably, this has a negative impact on his ability to mature in typical ways. A key part of the maturation process involves engaging with other people, forming connections with them that teach you valuable lessons about life and what it means to be an adult. As a young man with autism, Christopher obviously finds that rather difficult, to say the least.

But this is not impossible. By venturing out into the world in order to solve the mystery of who killed his neighbor's dog, Christopher is showing a considerable degree of maturity. One could say that his detailed detective work is the making of him, facilitating the often fraught transition from childhood to adulthood.

To be sure, Christopher still has a lot of growing up to do; he's by no means the finished article. But by the end of the play, having solved the mystery and passed his math exam with flying colors, he has taken a big step forward on the road to full maturity.

How is storytelling done in the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time?

Given that the original book on which the play is based is written from Christopher's point of view, it would've been impossible for Simon Stephens—or anyone else for that matter—to have written a stage adaptation without changing the narrative form.

So instead of the play version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time being presented directly through Christopher's eyes, we get his perspective at second hand via Siobhan, his school mentor and teacher, who reads the little book he's written about the mystery of who killed his neighbor's dog.

Having Siobhan speak Christopher's words is a highly effective dramatic technique, as it slowly but surely draws us into the young man's world, a world that most of us would find difficult to understand.

Christopher's story is no less powerful for being told by somebody else. The details largely speak for themselves. Even when his story is told through someone else, Christopher's personality shines through quite strongly. We feel sympathetic toward him, even when we don't fully understand him.

When Siobhan reads Christopher's book, it's as if we're reading the book with her, as if we too are entering into the mind of a fascinating young man with a truly unique and individual perspective on the world around him. And this is why, above all else, the play-within-a-play approach adopted by Stephens for the stage version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time works so effectively.