Interview with the 3 Cristinas from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

L. Serson:

1) Have your ideas about Asperger's Syndrome changed following your roles in the play?

Completely! Before, to me, a person with autism or asperger’s would be someone who would just sit in the corner of a room the whole day and wouldn’t talk to anyone or do anything with their lives. This is what I took the most from the play: it isn’t solely a fun story, but one that has a deeper message. As someone playing one of the roles of Cristina,  I felt responsible for transmitting the message of how important it is to know something before judging it.


2) What was your most memorable experience?

Having had a discussion with three autistic adults which briefly spoke to us about their happy moments and their struggles to help us interpret our character better. They also watched our rehearsal, which made us feel more responsible to portray the character accurately and make them proud.


3) What challenges did you face as 3 actors playing the same part?

Making our “ticks” (bitting our nails, not looking at people’s eyes, etc) be as similar as possible to the other actors’.


4) What advice do you have for future actors keen to take part in the school play?

RESEARCH YOUR CHARACTER!


G. Castilla:

1) Have your ideas about Asperger's syndrome changed following your roles in  the play? Now I am much more aware of the problems and difficulties of having Asperger's syndrome, and for the people living around these people. I have a clearer and more consistent understanding about what Asperger's is.


2) What was your most memorable experience? 

Talking to the three young adults with autism and their therapist. This way I got a better perspective and understanding of autism first hand.


3) What challenges did you face as 3 actors playing the same part? 
Having 3 Christina's was challenging because we had to match, and we’re very different people and have different acting styles. We had disagreements and some bickering because we spent so much time together and a discussion over who would get one particular scene, as it was such an emotional and powerful scene, but eventually we worked it out. 


4) What advice do you have for future actors keen to take part in the school play? 

You have to be prepared to give up a lot of your free time, especially near the play. However, you if you are interested, you should audition for a part because it is a very impactful and great experience, one that teaches you loads of skills and will leave you with fun memories.



L. Maksoud:

1) Have your ideas about Asperger's syndrome changed following your roles in  the play? Before I joined the play I had only a vague idea of what Asperger’s syndrome was. Having to get into the character’s mind required a lot of research. We got the chance to meet 3 people in the autism spectrum and what I think changed the most for me was my understanding of how similar we are in so many ways.


2) What was your most memorable experience? 

I always have too many memorable experiences in the play to focus in just one. I’d have to say on of the funniest ones was when I was helping my friend, Sofia, who was playing my mother in the play to get into character. So I followed her around during lunch, calling her mother as Christina and having episodes in the middle of the lunch room to show her just how frustrating it could be. I also love the moments right before the cast goes onstage for the first time. It’s like your teeth turn into metal and your heart drops to the ground every time you think about messing something up. It sound awful but to me it’s one of the best feelings ever, that adrenaline and euphoria is something that I barely feel outside the theatre.


3) What challenges did you face as 3 actors playing the same part? 

I guess that theatrical feuds are inevitable when you have three people playing the same part. We had different visions about our character so it took a while for us to compromise and get more in sync with each other. An example would be that sometimes the other Christina’s didn’t manage to imitate the hand gestures I would do when I was in character. Despite the disputes we had to learn how to respect each other and understand that each one of us were trying the best that we could.


4) What advice do you have for future actors keen to take part in the school play? 

The advice I’d give is to probably accept every idea that you think of, because if you don’t try them all, you won’t know which one is good or not. Also, don’t rely on other people to assure you of those ideas, because sometimes you’ll lose amazing thoughts because of that.