The Cursed Child is probably the least interesting of the main characters in his titular play

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling is a trash person. 

 

I saw Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in London in 2016. It was still in previews, a couple months before the script was published. This was a few days before the Brexit vote. I saw it again on Broadway, on February 29, 2020. I'm hoping that I saw it again this weekend isn't a portent. Or maybe that I saw the one-play version will bode better for me?

 

Here's my initial reaction, from 2016 (I held off on my thoughts until it officially opened for review by the press): 

So, as stated when I saw this a month ago, I really enjoyed the play. As some of these [reviews] say, the actual stagecraft was more impressive than the plot. The story itself was enjoyable (though I had a problem with one BIG plot point and one thing that contradicted the books).

 

It seems that the reviews largely ignore Harry's plot. In fairness, the action of the play revolves around Albus, Harry's son, but Harry's journey of dealing with what he went through at Hogwarts is present throughout the two plays. Those are the sections of the plays that I can't wait to read. There are loads of articles of "I grew up with Harry Potter" about kids who grew up reading him--and he was their contemporary. But now the man on stage is mine; we're the same age, and it's fascinating seeing him at that stage of life, dealing with his past and the traumas therein but also dealing with parenthood and a job full of paperwork.

 

The play will be interesting to read, and I imagine people won't enjoy the script as much as audiences enjoy the play. The stagecraft, as mentioned, is fantastic, and there's a lot of staging that was just so cool--and I don't mean the magic stuff. The movement of the actors was SO good. There were large chunks that were totally extraneous but really neat to watch, basically just of people moving around. (I was like, "I don't need 5 minutes of transition from Platform 9 3/4 to Hogwarts, but it's neat to watch, so...never mind.")

 

I do have to second whichever review(s?) highlighted Scorpius. He's a well-drawn, nuanced character who is probably better formed than any of the other new characters.

 

In some ways, I do wish it had been a book. We're missing a lot, and not just by not knowing what people are thinking, but by missing the throwaway exposition about random characters. There's more about the world of Harry Potter in 2016 that I want to know.

Do I remember what plot points I had issues with? I do not. (I think it had something to do with Delphi's plan.) Anyway, this still pretty much stands. I was concerned that the move from two plays to one would mean losing a lot of those scenes of movement, but happily those bits are still in there. It's just very cool to watch; the effects and tricks are fantastic.

John Skelley and Emmet Smith as Harry and Albus Potter. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

Watching it, I didn't notice specific things missing, but I found myself thinking that there was more Harry in the original version. In a helpful rundown of the changes made, I found I was right. The two-play version, which is still playing in London, has a bunch of flashbacks from Harry's childhood as well as more scenes of adult Harry having nightmares. Which is a bummer, because as noted above, I really liked getting to know adult Harry and seeing how his incredibly traumatic childhood and adolescence affected him in adulthood. There are some other scenes about the adults that are missing, which is a shame, but I can't blame playwright Jack Thorne for wanting to focus on the titular cursed child.

The other change that I noticed was how they tweaked the relationship of Albus and Scorpius. It wasn't huge--just some adjusted language, mostly--but their relationship went from one where you could interpret it as romantic or not to one that is pretty clearly romantic, but in a way that makes complete sense for two adolescent boys. I thought that change was really well done.

Scorpius remains probably the most interesting character in the show. I thought that actor Aidan Close played it a bit too broadly and it bothered me, but when I mentioned it to my Bonus Sister, who I went with, she said she really liked it--he was such a contrast to the completely buttoned-up Draco, which was a fantastic observation.

Overall, Cursed Child remain an amazing show to experience. I totally understand people not wanting to see the show because they don't want to support Rowling; that's completely fair. Also, the story itself is a bit weak. But still, actually seeing it live is a great time. (I will say that I'd probably recommend doing so on Broadway, where there's a dedicated theater, which means that some effects are more immersive than what can be done in a touring production.)

Snape, Snape, Severus Snape

Anglophenia, a BBC America blog, did a tournament of favorite British actors. The worst stage for me was when David Tennant went head-to-head with Colin Firth. Just mean. Anyway, the final was between Colin Firth and Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman won.

Look, I love Alan Rickman, but to me, Mr. Darcy > Colonel Brandon. And I can't help but feel that Rickman won with an assist from his turn as Severus Snape. There are a lot of women who are in love with Alan Rickman as Snape. Look, I love Rickman. I think Snape is a fascinating character. And Rickman does a FABULOUS job with Snape. But I just don't understand people who think he's sexy as Snape. Snape, the character, is not sexy. Rickman as Snape is not sexy. I guess the argument is that he's all tortured? Or something? I mean, we don't find out anything sympathetic about him until Prisoner of Azkaban, and that's only that the Marauders were mean to him.

Of course, there are some guys I find sexy that people probably don't. So I shouldn't judge. And he was EXCELLENT in Sense and Sensibility.

How to succeed...in life

There's a lot about Daniel Radcliffe that's impressive. He really seems to have a good head on his shoulders; he gives awesome, amusing interviews; and he really seems to have done a great job thinking about his life post-Potter. Doing Equus, and following it up with the musical comedy How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway...and then a period scary movie, The Woman in Black. Really smart--here's a guy who's obviously thinking long-term. And he has the chops to pull it off. I've been impressed with his work in the Potter movies.

He works in How to Succeed, too. I went up to New York yesterday and caught the matinee. Overall, the show was a lot of fun. There's something incredibly enjoyable about seeing a show with a lot of dancing that makes you feel good (I imagine the current Anything Goes revival is similarly fun--I mean, Sutton Foster!). The show isn't perfect by any means--for one thing, there are a songs that just do not advance the plot ("Coffee Break"? "Paris Original"? Why?). And then there's J. Pierrepont Finch, our "hero". We follow his journey through the ranks of the World Wide Wicket Company, from window washer to the executive boardroom. This is a character we know NOTHING about. Quite literally, all we know is that he's ambitious. He wants to succeed in business. And...that's all. Dude is a blank slate. Of the characters in the show, he's probably the least developed. Which is saying something.

It makes a perfect role for casting a celebrity. Daniel Radcliffe is someone that a majority of the audience already sympathizes with; we walk into the theater rooting for him. And he's clearly having a good time. He doesn't have a strong singing voice, but the role doesn't require one. His American accent is fantastic; late in the show, he has a line about World Wide Wickets being all American, causing the audience to laugh. It actually took me a minute to realize why everyone was laughing. Me: [pause] "Oh yeah! He's British!" I do admit that I kept thinking he should be wearing glasses, and a few of his gestures struck me as very Harry Potter, but that's probably because I've spent, what, 10 years watching him play the same role. It's not that the gestures are Harry Potter; it's that Potter is the only thing I've seen him in. He manages to keep up with the other dancers--I particularly enjoyed the "Old Ivy" sequence and his chipmunk impression. Bottom line: He manages to carry the show.

Naturally, the audience was full of fangirls. The cheers for Radcliffe's entrance were ENORMOUS. I was happy to discover, though, that the audience was that enthusiastic about everything. They gave John Laroquette a similar cheer at his entrance (though I refuse to believe many of them ever saw Night Court), and there was a lot of laughing and applause throughout the show. The screams during the curtain were kind of crazy--but they were coming from an audience that was standing before the curtain call even began. I can't imagine what it must be like for the other actors to be in this show, but if the audience is always that enthusiastic, I bet it's a fun job.

I particularly enjoyed Rose Hemingway making her Broadway debut as Rosemary Pilkington, Ponty's love interest. She was adorable. Tammy Blanchard as Hedy La Rue was not the vamp I expected her to be; honestly, when she made her big entrance, I was like, "What? She's wearing basically the same thing as the rest of the secretaries and doesn't seem that much more endowed than them." Her performance was fine, but...eh. I wasn't blown away. And couldn't really see what made the men fall all over themselves, other than it was in the script.

I also didn't like "A Secretary Is Not a Toy" as much as I do on the 1995 revival recording. I was sad they cut the bit with the men typing, and one of my favorite lines ("A pad is to write in, not spend the night in") was sort of glossed over. I also think I like the "How to Succeed" reprise used in the '95 revival at the top of Act Two more than "Cinderella Darling", which apparently was in the original. It did have tap dancing, though, which I appreciated.

Also appreciated were the adorable boys in the cast. Even the villain--Christopher J. Hanke as Bud Frump--was super cute. It didn't hurt that they were all wearing those early 60's-style suits, and a bunch were in glasses. Sexy!

In general, the staging was great. I loved how "Company Way" was done, incorporating the mail into the choreography in fun ways. (Plus, that's one of my favorite numbers.) And shoving more and more people into the elevator in "It's Been a Long Day" was a great move--playing it for more laughs than I would have thought.

I highly recommend the show. Part of me felt weird about blowing the money in this ticket--like, I should see something serious. Or more out-there, like Book of Mormon. But there are times that you just want to have fun. And this pulled that off.

(You can get a great feel for it through the preview footage, available here.)

Chamber of Awesome, maybe

I revealed myself as a total geek to some coworkers today. Most realize that I'm a total geek, but these were coworkers I didn't know very well. The topic? Harry Potter. I could not be more excited about the new movies if I tried. I make little squeaking noises every time I see a new trailer (like here).

It's amazing how well those stories hold together. I caught most of Chamber of Secrets on tv this weekend and it really drove home how important that book is in the overall story. I remember the first few times I read it, I wasn't blown away. I enjoyed it, sure, but thought it was basically just a rehash of Sorcerer's Stone. Entertaining enough, but I wasn't bowled over.

But then the saga continued. And the elements of CoS started to resonate throughout the other books. The house elves. The history of Voldemort. So good. The more I read the books, the more I watch the story, the more I'm impressed by what Rowling did.

Anyway...just a few weeks left! Yay!

Potter rerun

I just finished rereading the Harry Potter series. It took under a month, and most of that was spent reading two of the book (Order of the Phoenix and Deathly Hallows). And the thing that really blew me away was how incredibly tight the series is. The old adage is that if you see a gun in Act One, it's going to go off in Act Three. That was just all over the place. The smallest thread from a book very well might show up two books later. I remember reading Goblet of Fire and being bored with the whole house elf subplot, but the actions of house elves--responses to how they were treated--were crucial in Phoenix and Hallows. The author of a textbook we first see in Sorcerer's Stone is a point in Hallows. Even the Time Turners from Prisoner of Azkaban are specifically destroyed in Phoenix so they can't be a plot point later. Reading it, over and over I'd encounter a name or a curse or an incident from a previous book and it was just exactly where it needed to be.

It's just really good to see. Rowling obviously plotted these things out incredibly before setting pen to paper for Sorcerer's Stone. There are stories of people asking her questions about some random character, and she'll give a detailed answer. It's clear that her knowledge of this world and the people in it extends far deeper than what she included in the books.

Which makes the epilogue of Hallows that much more frustrating. It annoyed me then, it annoys me now. I should not have to have read in an interview with Rowling a week after the book came out what Harry and his buds had chosen for careers. According to Rowling, "It would have been humanly impossible to answer every single question that comes up." Well, that's true. But I wasn't asking the names of Harry's great-great-grandparents. I just wanted to know his job. That information is WAY more interesting than the names of his kids, and Ron and Hermione's kids, and even Bill and Fleur's kids. Good Lord, woman. We learn that. And we learn that Neville is a professor at Hogwarts. Yeah, that isn't what I wanted to learn in the epilogue. Harry and Ron revolutionized the Auror Department? That's awesome! How? What did they do? Even just a hint would be better than them seeing each other at Platform 9 3/4.

(I won't get into Harry and Ginny. Let's just say that I don't feel it in the books or the movies. Even a little.)

Still, it's hard to quibble with a few missteps when literally thousands of pages are so good. I mean, I found it hard to put the books down, even having read all of them before--some of them quite a few times. Kudos to you, Ms Rowling, and I look forward to you releasing the Potter encyclopedia.

Barb and the Penultimate Harry Potter

Naturally, I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince pretty much as soon as I could (Thursday night). And I liked it. A lot. I did find myself slightly incapacitated by the fact that I haven't read the book since the day it came out, to the point where I had to look up whether they had created a character for the movie. (No.)

Overall, it was enjoyable. I thought that Tom Felton, who plays Draco, did a great job. I found the costumes of Lavendar Brown confusing. (Is she in some weird 1980s alternate universe?) I'm not sure how I feel about some changes at the movie's climax, and am a bit sad about the excising of a big battle--though I can understand why they cut it, seeing how it's a lot of action after the big emotional moment. Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe both did wonderfully in their scenes where their characters are under the influence of potions--totally hilarious.

One thing that bothered me is the lack of flashbacks. Now, it has been a while since I've read the book, but my big memory of it is the flashbacks. I remember it as a nice interlude between the emotional fifth and seventh books. The movie is too, but I miss that backstory. I enjoyed the third movie (Prisoner of Azkaban), but for me, it failed on a certain level by the almost complete lack of backstory of Harry's parents and their friends. That story is what made that book resonate for me...and it was gone. No matter how great Cuaron did and how cool Gary Oldman did (and David Thewlis--Lupin is one of my favorite characters in the Potterverse), the movie failed for me because of that depth.

Obviously the movies have to focus more on the action, but I really, really miss those backstories, for all of them--Harry's parents, Tom Riddle, Dumbledore. I like the movies, but they really only scratch the surface of the world.

However, I now desperately want to reread all of the books. And probably rewatch the movies. I just need to finish the books I have out of the library first! /frustration

Of adaptations and awesome talk show appearances

So apparently Michael Gambon, the actor who's played Dumbledore since the third Harry Potter movie, hasn't read any of the books. And neither have Ralph Fiennes (Voldemort) or Alan Rickman (Snape). As actors, they don't want the books to influence them--they want to rely solely on the script. Which is fine, I guess, though it's not like they'd be watching another actor play the part--they can't steal anyone's ideas except the author's, which doesn't really seem like a bad idea. It bothers me in Gambon's case, though, because there's a piece of Dumbledore that seems to be missing; I can't quite put my finger on it, but some of his empathy and whimsy or something isn't there. He does fine, but I feel like the movie version of Dumbledore just isn't as great as the book version. Fiennes and Rickman are both fine in their roles, but neither role is as complex, really, as Dumbledore--or, at least, have as much that's not in the script. I think Gambon's missing out by not reading the books, and I think the audience is missing out because of it.

In other news, I am kind of in love with Daniel Radcliffe now.

Running behind

So at some point, I'll post something. Maybe about a couple of books I read! Or some plays I've seen! Or the end of the tv season!

You'll just have to wait and see. Perhaps at some point I'll have time to post. That'd be nice. I imagine it'd be therapeutic to get those thoughts out of my head--like how Dumbledore used the Pensieve. Alas, tonight it is not meant to be.

That's just too catchy

For your amusement this Friday evening...



Not sure why Dumbledore gets naked, though.