My name is Jan and I'm a Harry Potter fangirl. Seriously. I mean I pre-ordered the published script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Amazon, downloaded the Kindle
version on the day it came out last July, devoted a couple of uninterrupted hours to reading it that same afternoon and then set up a Google alert to notify me when I
could buy tickets to the stage version when the show transferred from London's West
End to Broadway's newly renovated Lyric Theatre.
I fell under Harry Potter's spell 20 years ago when the
first of the seven books in J.K. Rowling's series about the education of a boy
wizard was published in the U.S. I clearly wasn't the intended audience but its enchanted world swept me up and I turned my teenage niece Jennifer onto the
book. We went through the rest of the series together, reading each
installment as soon as it came out. We watched the movies that made Daniel
Radcliffe a star too, or at least most of them since the final ones grew a
little tedious.
So both Jennifer, now herself the mother of a two-year-old,
and I were excited and nervous about the prospect of seeing our beloved Harry's
world brought to life on a stage. We left totally delighted by what we'd seen.
Playwright Jack Thorne, working
off a story devised along with Rowling, and director John Tiffany have created
a two-part, five-hour saga that extends the coda at the end of the final book. It's a
smart idea, playing directly to the Gen Yers, who grew up reading and loving the Potter
books. Like them, Harry is now an adult. He's married with three kids and
working for the Ministry of Magic, where his old friend Hermione is the top
minister and married to their old pal Ron.
The show opens with the three friends and Harry's wife Ginny
at the train station, preparing to send their own kids off to the wizarding
school Hogwarts. Hermione and Ron's daughter Rose can't wait to start there but
Harry's middle son Albus, named for the famed former headmaster of the school,
is more reluctant.
A loner, Albus has
never adjusted to being the son of a famous father. That creates a bond between
him and another lonely boy wrestling with his family's legacy, Scorpius Malfoy,
the son of Harry's one-time nemesis Draco who is in disgrace for having been a follower
of the evil wizard Voldemort, whom Harry vanquished at the end of the books.
The play's plot is a convoluted tale about the two boys'
clumsy attempts to use a time traveling machine to change a tragic incident in
the past. It's hard even for Potterheads, who cheer loudly whenever a familiar
name or place is mentioned, to follow what's going on. But plot is just a maguffin for Rowling who has always been
far more interested in the atmospheric setting of the world she created and the emotional
connections between the people who populate it.
Thorne
(click here to read an interview with him) and
Tiffany remain true to that spirit.
But
even audience members who come without knowing the difference between Hogwarts
and Azkaban (a guide and glossary are included in the program to help out) can
appreciate the magic they've created onstage.
Characters disappear right in front of our eyes. Others fly
through the air, without any apparent support. Ghostly apparitions float
throughout the theater. The how-did-they-do-that sleight of hand was crafted by the illusionist Jamie Harrison and is supportively lit by Neil Austin. Meanwhile, the master movement maker Steven
Hoggett choreographs such brilliant sequences that he picked up one of the
show's 10 Tony nominations even though Harry Potter and the Cursed Child isn't
a musical.
The show seems destined to pick up a bunch of Tonys when
they're given out on June 10. Some critics are gripping that it doesn't deserve
the prize for Best Play because, they say, the sensational stagecraft obscures
a sappy story. But I was moved by the struggles of the play's fathers and sons
to connect with one another. And I thought the final scene was a perfect way to
end the saga.
Much of the credit for that must go to the show's top-notch
cast. And although it's unfair to single out any of the principal players, I'm
going to do it anyway and cheer Anthony Boyle who brings both humor and
poignancy to the role of the towheaded Scorpius and is a frontrunner for
the Tony for best actor in a featured role
(click here to read an interview with him).
I'm also cheering Noma Dumezweni's wise and warm performance
as Hermione.
Some fans complained when Dumezweni, a black Brit of South
African descent, was originally cast in the role but the noise quieted down
after Rowling tweeted her wholehearted support for that decision and Dumezweni's
Tony-nominated performance should please all but the most retrograde naysayers
(click here to read more about her).
The offstage experience is fun too. Some audience
members—both kids and adults—show up in costume and parade around the lobby as their favorite characters.
And I was even charmed by the renovation of the Lyric, which use to look cold
and unwelcoming but now resembles a cozy Victorian-era theater. However some people have complained about problems with the narrow steps in the center aisle that have caused a few audience members, including
the 93-year-old critic John Simon, to fall
(click here to read about that) so
watch where you walk if you go.
Although going to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child isn't easy either. The producers are using a
verified ticketing system so that purchasers have to register and then, after being
approved, have to join an online queue to buy tickets when blocks of them are released for
sale. The tickets aren't cheap either, since you have to buy both parts. And
yet, it's money well spent. I've already
got seats to see it again later this summer. Like I said, I'm a fan.
