play

CCP presents killer stage satire

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By John Lyle Belden

Show business is crazy.

Like really crazy, nuts, bonkers, cookoo! The kind of insane that you see in movies like “The Bad Seed” or “All About Eve,” which Joel Paley and Marvin Laird used as the touchstones for their 1990s Off-Broadway hit comedy musical, “Ruthless!” now presented by Carmel Community Players, directed by Kathleen Clarke Horrigan.

New York agent Sylvia St. Croix (Jeff Fuller) knows talent, and little Tina Denmark (Olivia Cook) has got it! Tina’s mother, Judy (Jonna Kauffman), sings very well for someone with no talent. Tina’s father, Frederick (Tristan Stecenko), is away on business.

The first step on Tina’s path to Broadway is getting the lead in the school production of “Pippi Longstocking: Pippi in Tahiti.” However, Miss Thorn (Holly Hathaway Thompson) has given the lead role to ungifted and unmotivated Louise Lerman (Jennifer Kaufmann). Tina can be the understudy, but she’s not settling for that.  

On hand to see Tina’s debut is Judy’s adopted mother, feared theatre critic Lita Encore (Jill O’Malia).  This show will be to die for!

That’s just the first act – after intermission, things get even more suspenseful and silly with rising star Ginger Del Marco (Jonna K.) and her assistant, Eve (Jennifer K.). Secrets will be revealed; a Tony award will be fondled; more characters will die dramatically.

And contrary to the title, there may even be a Ruth!

This clever parody and satire takes on the tropes of noir and theatre with equal gusto, a spectacle where over-the-top is never enough. The big song is Lita’s “I Hate Musicals!” wonderfully delivered by O’Malia – a nice palate cleanser between courses of chewing scenery.

Miss Cook shows herself capable to knock ‘em dead (not just literally) in any show. Fuller in mature-diva drag as St. Croix is commanding, and, in this setting, practically normal.  Jonna Kauffman gets in well-played moments as both ditz and diva, showcasing her dynamic voice.  Thompson and Jennifer Kaufmann are also gloriously goofy.

You’d be crazy to miss this. “Ruthless!” plays Thursday through Sunday at The Switch Theatre at Ji-Eun Lee Music Academy, 10029E. 126th St., Suite D., Fishers. Get tickets at carmelplayers.org.

Epilogue’s ‘Mr. Green’ a memorable visit

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By John Belden

Being unaware of Epilogue Players’ “Visiting Mr. Green,” the self-described “comedy/drama” by Jeff Baron about a weekly appointment at the home of an 80-something single man, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Well, this ain’t “Tuesdays with Morrie” – for one thing, our young adult Ross Gardner (Grant Bowen) arrives on Thursdays at the home of Mr. Green (Tom Bartley). This visitation isn’t sentimental, it’s court-ordered. Ross nearly ran over the old man with his car, and accepted fault and the judge’s unconventional version of community service.

To say Mr. Green is a curmudgeon would be putting it lightly. He’s very set in his ways, accustomed to being alone, and it’s hard to tell whether his mind is slipping or he wears distraction like a mask to hide his loneliness at the passing of his wife Yetta – “59 years, never an argument!” – months ago. He is a devout Jew, while Ross hasn’t done much with his faith since his bar mitzvah.

Bartley manages to portray this effectively without the distraction of aging makeup, brusque in his speech and manners, accompanied by slow but purposeful movement. He’s likable, but some of his attitudes challenge us – hard to brush off as just relics of another time or culture.

Ross tries hard to be accommodating. Bowen portrays him as frustrated, a people-pleaser at heart yet unable to find his own peace. We can tell he’s a good person caught in an awkward situation, something to which we can easily relate.

Over time, as one would expect, the two build a rapport of sorts, however a couple of personal revelations – one involving each of them – threaten to destroy their budding friendship. These visits become a compelling mix of gentle laughs and harsh words. As they both serve this unusual months-long sentence, they must find what – aside from Kosher soup – will be enough to heal their damaged souls.

The show is smartly directed by Mac Bellner with encouragement from Baron, whose recently completed second revision of his 1997 script is produced here.

This charming reflection on family, aging, and personal connections has performances Thursday through Sunday, April 10-13, at Epilogue, 1849 N. Alabama St., Indianapolis. Get tickets at epilogueplayers.com.

‘Misery’ still thrills at BCP

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By John Lyle Belden

In the years since Stephen King published his thriller “Misery” in 1987, there have been countless real-world stories of deranged fans stalking and even killing their celebrity obsessions. Yet this story is the most chilling, thanks in part to the William Goldman film adaptation, directed by Robert Reiner and released in 1990, starring James Caan and Kathy Bates (winning her an Oscar).

Goldman also adapted “Misery” for the stage, which Buck Creek Players now brings to life. Popular author Paul Sheldon (Mark Meyer) awakens severely injured in a remote house in the Colorado Rockies. The home belongs to Annie Wilkes (Lisa Banning), a nurse who rescued Sheldon from an auto wreck during a blizzard – and happens to be Paul’s “Number One Fan.”

Annie is obsessed with Paul’s novels about Victorian heroine Misery Chastain, and while caring for Paul reads his new non-Misery manuscript (which she hates), then makes her way into town to get the latest copy of his just-released “Misery’s Child.” She gushes over this new story, until she reaches the final chapter. Misery is dead?! Seeing this happen to her favorite character – her hero, practically a friend in her mind – enrages her beyond disbelief. Paul must write, and right this wrong!

As in the book and movie, this is an engrossing battle of wits. Paul, in a slowly-healing body, through his fog of pain, desperately seeks a way out of his entrapment. Meanwhile, Annie’s madness grows while sharpening her realization that there is only one way her and Paul’s story can end.

Aaron Beal completes the cast as Sheriff Buster, whose suspicions of what’s happening at Annie’s house grow with every visit.

Banning convincingly portrays Annie’s obsessive nature – at first fawning over Paul, later driving her to treat him like a misbehaving pet, at all times a little unbalanced – as well as her strict moral sense, with a sort of charming (at first) sense of eccentricity. It evokes in the best way the chilling transformation of Bates in the film.

Meyer tackles the role of Paul as a fairly nice regular guy who happens to have an exceptional talent for which he hides away in a mountain lodge to bang out a novel. This disruption to his routine has him forcing Paul to plot events in real life, which proves to be a lot harder than typing them to the page. His moments of pain are quite convincing – here’s hoping he wasn’t too “method.”

Jeremy Tuterow directs, and Susanne Bush designed an excellent stage set featuring Paul’s room isolated away from the more welcoming kitchen, with sight-lines that draw us in to Annie’s tightly controlled world.

Three performances remain of “Misery,” Friday through Sunday, April 4-6, at the BCP Playhouse, 11150 Southeastern Ave., Indianapolis (Acton Road exit off I-74). Get info and tickets at buckcreekplayers.com.

The wisdom of ‘Wizer’

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By John Lyle Belden

“The Wizer of Odds,” written and directed by local playwright Gabrielle Patterson, stands apart from most adaptations of the classic “Wizard of Oz” story by L. Frank Baum, best known from the 1939 MGM film. Rather than try to directly recreate the plot and characters (like in “The Wiz”) this non-musical allegory takes familiar aspects of story, character, and theme to build something both familiar and fresh, timeless and modern.

We start out near Kansas where Camile (Kelly Boyd as our “Dorothy” character) longs for more than what she feels her cornfield town and living with her Gran (Patterson) can offer her. She also wishes to reconnect – or connect at all – with her mother Evelyne (Alicia Sims) who abandoned her as a baby to go live in New York City.

Camile sets out on a road trip for the Big Apple, bringing along best friends Tiny (Cara Wilson) and Stephanie (Ja’Taun Tiara). First, she says goodbye to long-time friend Thomas (Jericho Franke), whose confession of love does nothing to stop her.

On the road, car trouble brings the girls to the shop of Ray Tinman (Bryan Ball), a memorable encounter but Camile doesn’t think much of the man in the oil-stained clothes.

Finally in New York, Evelyn isn’t as welcoming a host as they had hoped. She cares little for reconnecting and just wants to take Camile and her friends out to the hottest club – The Flying Monkey. The evening gets off to a rough start as Camile feels the doorman Leon (Richard Bowman) isn’t aggressive enough in repelling the advances of an obnoxious man (Lamont Golder). At the club, we encounter the charismatic Oz (Chris Shields), who may be just what our heroine is looking for – but how wise is that choice?

Though not a musical, we get brilliant soliloquies in hip-hop poetry for nearly all characters to elaborate how they feel. The straw-colored man, the one who works with machines, and the presumed coward each state their case for how manhood and one’s value are not just what a person presumes, and are worth a better look.

In our three generations we get women who are each intriguing in their own way. Boyd as Camile is smart and likable, but has her gaze too far over the rainbow to see what is at hand, to her own peril. Patterson’s Gran, who also goes by Glinda, has a great deal of wisdom, enough to know she can’t force a willful girl to listen, and to be there with kindness when the lessons are learned. As for Sims as Evelyn, she is a study in dysfunction and self-centeredness – still, as Wendy pointed out, the sight of her “party” outfit may be worth the ticket price alone.

So many good performances in this show. Wilson presents a sweetly true companion (Patterson told me Tiny, like Steph, are analogous to the Munchkins, but I see faithful aspects of Toto too), while Tiara gives us that fashion-obsessed pal who will still drop that designer bag to join you in a fight. Ball easily radiates strength in his roles, and his Tin Man is sturdy. Shields, as Oz, smoothly gives us that outwardly noble man who can go from kissing your cheek to slapping it in a dark instant. Bowman – like the other men, playing more than one role – has the most contrast between his characters. His initial appearance cuts the line between funny and creepy so thin it’s barely visible; however, his lion roars with one of the bravest spoken passages. Franke is charming as Thomas, a man who (like his archetype) is smarter than he looks.  

An entertaining story salted with some hints and Easter eggs for traditional “Oz” fans, with that reliable lesson that there’s no place like home, “The Wizer of Odd” has two more weekends, April 4-6 and 11-13, at IF Theatre (home of IndyFringe), 719 E. St. Clair St., Indianapolis. Get tickets at indyfringe.org.

‘Lockefield’ showing lots of promise

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By John Lyle Belden

We got an early look at a new play, “Lockefield on the Ave,” presented by Black Light Training and Development on March 28-30, 2025, at The District Theatre. The following paragraphs are my response, posted to the PWJW Facebook page to help get the word around during its one-weekend run. Black Light is doing important artistic work with local creatives in contributing to the story of being Black in America, and especially in Indiana.

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This short play by Robert Webster focuses on the Indiana Avenue scene in Indianapolis in the mid-20th century. Percy Davis (Quinton Hayden) has a little bar on the Avenue. It was started by his father Freeman (Gene Tommy Howard) after a moment of good luck, before his fortunes reversed tragically thanks to his former boss – and Klan member – Jack Sucker (Ray Graham). Jack’s bigotry was inherited from his hooded father and Confederate grandfahter, but his son Tom (Clay Mabbitt) doesn’t see things that way and, as an aspiring journalist, goes so far as to attempt to write for the Black-owned Indianapolis Recorder. In what we will realize is a full circle moment, Tom interviews Percy to get an honest perspective on Indianapolis Avenue and the people there.

We get a lot of information on the characters and especially Indy’s Black history, aided by fellow cast members T. J. O’Neil, Sam Hill, and Tamara Taylor. Much of it feels like a sort of staged documentary, but the true story of the Avenue is something we all need to learn or be reminded of, as it has been largely left out of local history.

With tight direction by Eric Washington, this play is like a rough-cut diamond. There is a lot of potential for Webster and Black Light to polish and form with more drama and perhaps a two-act structure to bring together its elements – including plot points like the Davis pocketwatch, publishing the story, and the Sucker family dynamic – into a priceless gem of theatre. What we have so far is like a healthy first course of soul food, making us hungry for more.

Note that to be authentic, the N-word and opinions that thankfully are not so common now are freely expressed, in their proper context. Take comfort that this show ends with a moment of unity.

A big shout-out to Black Light interim artistic director TJ Rowley for giving me and Wendy a sneak-peek at this precious jewel, with our hope of continued success for the company.

Getting in our ‘Steps’

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By John Lyle Belden

In a bizarre coincidence that Alfred Hitchcock would find delightful, this last weekend saw two openings of the British thriller-turned-farce, “The 39 Steps,” adapted by Patrick Barlow from a four-hand comedy by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, heavily based on Hitchcock’s 1935 film of the same name, based somewhat on the 1915 novel by John Buchan.

The movie is notable for helping establish the drama film tropes of man-on-the-run and the potential comedy goldmine of two people who don’t get along being chained to each other. The more interesting scenes and twists? Hitch’s idea.

As noted, there are two productions spaced about three counties apart. Hyperion Players presents its “39 Steps” at the Switch Theatre in Fishers. Meanwhile, Eclipse Productions plays its version in Waldron Auditorium in downtown Bloomington.

The plot (for both): In the 1930s, Richard Hannay, a Canadian living in London, seeks diversion in a music hall featuring a performance by Mister Memory, during which he encounters a woman who ends up back at his flat (oh!), then mysteriously stabbed in the back (ugh!). She had warned Hannay of some international spy intrigue, and her death convinces him to go to Scotland – while London police seek him for the woman’s murder – to figure out what’s happening, including the identity of The Thirty-Nine Steps. On the way, he dodges a police patrol by kissing a woman on the train, who responds by turning him in to his pursuers. As luck will have it, she will later encounter him again, and again betray him. Mayhem follows Hannay up to the Highland moors and eventually back down to London for the climactic showdown that could clear his name and save England (at least for a few years).   

The Barlow script amps up the inherent humor of its Hitchcockian quirks and is staged with improvised props and four actors: one to play Hannay, one to be the women he encounters, and a couple of “Clowns” who play all the other roles.

The Hyperion production does this play silly; the Eclipse production does it weird. Both do it excellently.

In Fishers, Hyperion Players emphasizes the master of suspense. The script does have nods to other Hitchcock films, but here we also get a “Frenzy” of references in the curtain speech. Also, there are a few birds around the stage (crows, I believe, which counts as attempted “murder”).

Josh Elicker plays Hannay appropriately amused and bewildered by all the bizarre goings-on. Sarah Eberhardt is the leading lady, employing comically outrageous accents as German Annabel Schmidt and Scottish Margaret, contrasted with the more natural manner of Pamela (the woman on the train).  The Clowns are frenetically and effectively played by Becca Bartley and Ryan Moskalick, who makes a brilliant Mister Memory. Evangeline Bouw directs.

The set, designed by Beth Fike, looks like a stage with random pieces upon it like it’s between shows. The players make good use of items including a door frame, a piece of wall with a window, and a single comfy armchair. The plot moves along earnestly following the beats of the film, but in a manner showing they don’t take themselves too seriously. The result is like a spy-thriller sitcom.

Down in Bloomington, Eclipse (no relation to the summer student company in Indy) emphasizes the Clown aspect of the production. In fact, in a nod to theatre traditions including commedia dell’arte, we have one regular actor, Konnor Graber as our dashing Hannay, dealing with a small troupe of traditional costume-and-makeup clowns: Shayna Survil (the leading ladies), Steve Scott, Vera Wagler, and Jada Buehler. Having three rather than two “Clown” players makes for creative division of roles, including Mister Memory simultaneously presented by Wagler and Buehler, working almost like conjoined twins adorned in classic Tragedy and Comedy masks.

Speaking of which, assistant director Jeremy J. Weber invites all in attendance to put on one of the provided masks (yours to keep) to help immerse yourself in the goings-on. Director Kate Weber and the company arranged the seating surrounding a central area (suggesting a circus) where most of the action takes place. Gags and props are exaggerated, and a fight scene becomes like a professional bout with Survil walking the perimeter with a Ring Girl’s sign. The wild goings-on and sharply executed physical comedy almost overshadow the story’s plot. Still, this unique experience is worth the drive down to B-town.

So try one – or both! – of “The 39 Steps.”

Hyperion’s plays Thursday through Saturday at The Switch Theatre (Ji-Eun Lee Music Academy) 10029 126th St., Fishers. Tickets at hyperionplayers.com.

Eclipse’s plays Thursday through Sunday at Waldron Auditorium, 122 S. Walnut St., Bloomington. Tickets at eclipseproductionscompany.com.

Mud Creek drama worth the ‘Wait’

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By John Lyle Belden

One thing that tends to be tricky in live theatre is suspense. This is why the thriller “Wait Until Dark” by Frederick Knott is a popular choice for community companies, like the present production at Mud Creek Players, directed by Andrea Odle.

A pair of ex-cons are searching for a particular priceless doll – valuable not for its porcelain face or music box, but for also containing a highly valuable stash of uncut heroin. The woman bringing it into the country passed it to an unsuspecting photographer, Sam (Zachary Thompson), and her accomplices Mike (JB Scoble) and Carlino (Trever Brown) are in his lower-level apartment searching for it. However, the person who called them to be there is Mr. Roat (Kelly Keller), who has smoothly taken charge of the entire caper.

Sam’s wife Susy (Lexi Odle-Stollings) comes home and our criminals note that she is blind, so they can easily evade her. She hears something, and notices furniture has been moved, but blames it on Gloria (Evelyn Odom), the bratty girl who lives upstairs and often comes down to do errands for her.

Preferring finesse to violence (for now), while Sam is away on a bogus assignment, Mike pretends to be his old Marines buddy to talk Susy into divulging the location of the doll. Carlino plays a detective, and Roat adds two roles to the ruse, as the tension builds and their patience wanes. This is set in 1963, so a phone booth just down the block is a vital plot element. As Susy’s necessary attention to details starts to clue her in on what’s happening, how will she get out of this situation? Note the play’s title.

The cast also includes Sidney Blake and Thomas Burek.

Odle’s own attention to detail aids the atmosphere, taking advantage of the fact that the Mud Creek Barn isn’t a large venue, aiding our trapped feeling with lower than usual lighting. Jennifer Poynter is assistant director, and Amy Buell is stage manager.

Odle-Stollings delivers an excellent performance of a woman familiar with fear as she had been blinded only a couple of years before, still, knowing she must rely on her own strength and wits – every day to get around, and on this night as a matter of life and death. She received help from the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired to effectively and respectfully portray an unsighted person.

The fact that Keller is such a nice guy offstage helps make his turn as ruthless Roat all the more disturbing. His villainy is enhanced by his own sense for detail and preparation. Scoble and Brown add a bit of humor to the mix, but we come to see the hardened criminals they play take this all very seriously.

Odom, already quite active as a Mud Creek volunteer, is also a natural on stage, playing the kid who, despite her attitude, truly wants to help – if that involves breaking things, all the better!

Suspense builds to the final scene. See what happens when the lights go out in “Wait Until Dark,” performances Thursday through Saturday at 9740 E. 86th St., Indianapolis. Get tickets at mudcreekplayers.org.

Fonseca touching on sensitive topics

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By John Lyle Belden

“Can I Touch it?” by Francisca Da Silveira is about Black women’s hair. It is about Black women. It is about a Black neighborhood facing change, and a Black family in the middle of it.

This comedy addresses, according to director Dena Toler, the many ways people of color are “touched,” personally and collectively. Counter to the old saying, “It’s a Black thing, you wouldn’t understand,” this is a theatrical opportunity to get past clumsy questions and listen to the answers we need to absorb.

A helpful bit of context: According to Boston.gov, the central neighborhood of Roxbury is “the heart of Black culture” in the city. However, the headline of the web page says, “We’re bringing this historic neighborhood into the 21st century.” – Who is “We”? – Keep this in mind when you see this show at Fonseca Theatre Company.  

Shay (Lanetta Chandler) is having trouble getting a loan to help sustain her wig and beauty supply shop on Dudley Square in Roxbury. She runs it with her sole employee, and cousin, Meeka (D’yshe Mansfield), who also has braiding skills. Shay’s daughter Ruth (Ronni Watts) is finishing high school and doesn’t want to settle for the local college, Northeastern University.

The issues with the loan seem to coincide with Patron Bank also having designs on Dudley Square for development with modern multi-level, multi-use buildings. Shay and her friend since childhood, Mark (Peter Scharbrough), are among locals meeting with the bank’s representative, Beth (Mansfield), who addresses them with a saccharine smile and thinly-veiled condescension.

Watts also plays Lili, a customer at Shay’s shop who also works at Patron; Scharbrogh is also Nicky, a barber in Somerville (just outside Boston) and friend of Meeka.

This heart of Black culture has a beat which rises up between scenes as the title question and others, such as “Is it expensive?” and “Does it hurt?” are considered one at a time.

“We live in the compromise,” Shay says, and Chandler gives her a weary optimism of one who has lived in that mode her whole life. Mansfield contributes much of the comedy in her portrayals of both eager and feisty Meeka and blonde bitch Beth. Watts gives us Ruth feeling caught between concern for her mother and worry for her future. Scharbrough, as all the white men in the cast, gives Mark and Nicky distinctive positive personalities. He also has a moment as an unhelpful loan officer.

It is fitting that with those in more than one role, much of the difference is reflected in the wigs worn. Watts truly looks like two different people as the girl Ruth with natural hair and the woman Lili with a long straight weave.

Credit, then, to Jeanne Bowling for costumes and props (including the hairpieces, I presume). Bernard Killian designed the stage with components that change from Shay’s shop to other locations as needed, aided by lighting by Ben Dobler. Ayshah Matthews is assistant director and Maggie Ward is stage manager, aided by Mad Brown.

Joshua Short makes an appearance as an online video influencer.  

Serious stuff with some laugh-out-loud moments and answers to bothersome questions – perhaps raising a few more – “Can I Touch It?” runs through March 30 at 2508 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis. Get tickets and info at fonsecatheatre.org.

Beautiful, fragile ‘Glass’ on IRT stage

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By Wendy Carson

Memory is a funny thing. It can make things seem much better, or worse, than they were without you even knowing. This discrepancy is fully acknowledged by our narrator, Tom Wingfield (played by Felipe Carrasco), in Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” at the Indiana Repertory Theatre.

This 1944 drama is the first theatrical instance of what is now known as a “memory play”. (A current example of the style would be the sitcom, “How I Met Your Mother.”) The point of view is how Tom (based to a degree on Williams himself) remembers these events. He gives us a glimpse of his home life in St. Louis with his overbearing mother Amanda (Julie Fishell) and slightly older sister Laura (Delaney Feener).

Tom is a dreamer who wishes to write poetry but dutifully slaves away at a shoe warehouse to support his family. Laura has been in ill health since her childhood; she also suffers from crushing anxiety, making it almost impossible for her to leave the house for any reason, let alone make friends. Amanda rightly worries about her daughter’s future as she notices Tom’s desire to experience adventures beyond what he sees at the movies every night.

Trying to inspire Laura, her mother drones on about her heyday as a debutante in Mississippi, fighting off the troves of “Gentleman Callers” with a stick. As things reach a boiling point, Amanda forces Tom to bring home a coworker to be a Gentleman Caller for Laura.

Enter Jim O’Connor (Sam Bell-Gurwitz), a former schoolmate who was destined for great things but fell far short. He shows ambition as he seeks to regain his “destiny.”

Director James Still does a beautiful job of making the tale resonate with the audience. While in true Tennessee Williams style, the story ends dismally, it also contains one of the most positive and beautiful scenes he has ever written, and Still keeps the dichotomy perfectly balanced.

Carrasco gives us an engaging narrator, despite his own warning of being unreliable. His Tom becomes wrapped up in the story with us, while his own personal agenda is overshadowed by a fateful evening’s events.

Feener brings to her essential role of Laura a sad sweetness with a degree of resignation to her life with her collection of delicate glass animals. She has a faint hope so impossible that it overwhelms her when it comes to her door, and will test her soul in the coming hour. Feener also has a visible difference that helps emphasize Laura’s feelings of separation from regular society.

Fishell gives Amanda a sort of bluster that thinly hides the fear that things will not work out the way she wishes. Bell-Gurwitz is loud in a more confident manner, yet his Gentleman Caller has experienced enough to yield some good advice.

See the fragile beauty that brought Tennessee Williams to Broadway on the intimate Janet Allen Upperstage of the IRT, 140 W. Washington St., in the heart of downtown Indianapolis, through April 6. Get tickets and info at irtlive.com.

Civic gets ‘Curious’ with story of mystery and maths

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By John Lyle Belden

One nice thing about the Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre production of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” (by Simon Stephens, based on the Mark Haddon novel) is that instead of a realistic looking dead dog in the middle of the stage, there is a chalk-outline style silhouette – with the garden fork stuck in it. Can’t avoid that detail as the dog, Wellington, is indeed dead.

But this play isn’t really about the dog.

The canine crime, however, is what starts Christopher Boone, a teenager in Swindon, England, who is definitely on the autism spectrum but specific diagnoses are not mentioned and irrelevant as long you understand he’s just different, to start writing his very detailed “book” on this curious incident, to aid in his investigation of the apparent murder.

So, what we see are the events of Christopher’s (Ozzy Heath) writing, also being the play that his teacher Siobhan (Jean Childers Arnold) encourages to make of it with the help of community actors (Lisa K. Anderson, Matt Anderson, Lukas Robinson, Rex Wolfley, Kennedy Morgan and Carrie Andrews Reiberg). It does appear that Christopher’s father Ed (Eric Reiberg) and mother Judy (Afton Shepard) play themselves, but that might just be us sharing his memories. Everything will add up, though, as Christopher is exceptionally good at “maths,” as the British call them.

The first act involves the quirky pursuit of justice for Wellington, which leads to a rather upsetting discovery. In the second, resolving a new mystery means taking on the most horrific challenge of Christopher’s life – the London Underground subways.

Jay Hemphill directs this production that helps deliver Christopher’s unique perspective through image projections and the other players acting as various characters, barriers, and at several moments, choreographed chaos. The neurodivergent think in straight lines and simple facts, but the world around us is mazes and metaphors.

Lebanon high schooler Heath does an excellent job of expressing that perspective, complete with a respectfully accurate presentation of the boy’s tics and quirks. Showing this person so honestly helps us to empathize and cheer him on.

Arnold’s Siobhan is that favorite teacher we either fondly remember or wish we had. She obviously understands working with students like Christopher and making him feel respected and, in this curious context, normal. Contrast this almost too good to be true character (perhaps because seen through the boy’s eyes) with his parents, neither of whom would be named Britian’s Mom or Dad of the Year.

Reiberg and Shepard each play their roles with a brutal honesty in which they see where they slipped up, finding themselves needing and willing to do the work to restore the most important and fragile thing in Christopher’s world – trust.

This story has lots of humor and persistence and compassion in a demonstration that seeing things through a different way of thinking can lead to amazing insights. And in the end, you will cheer the answer to an A-Levels maths problem!

Christopher doesn’t mind tight spaces, so we see “The Curious Incident” in The Studio Theater at the Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Carmel, through March 29. Get tickets at civictheatre.org or thecenterpresents.org.