{"id":2186,"date":"2016-08-03T23:04:34","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T03:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/?p=2186"},"modified":"2024-01-21T11:30:32","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T16:30:32","slug":"rowling-j-k-john-tiffany-jack-thorne-08-harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/2016\/08\/rowling-j-k-john-tiffany-jack-thorne-08-harry-potter-and-the-cursed-child\/","title":{"rendered":"Rowling, J.K., John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne: (08) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child<\/cite>"},"content":{"rendered":"

The library got me the newest installment in J.K. Rowling’s\u00a0Harry Potter saga, the script for the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child<\/em><\/strong>, on its release, a bit to my surprise,\u00a0and\u00a0I opened it up\u00a0mostly because I couldn’t decide what else I was in the mood for, and I\u00a0figured\u00a0spoilers would be rampant soon enough. (This is technically a play by Jack Thorne, based on a story by Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne; I’ve put the author names in the order they appear on the cover.)<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, through no fault of its own,\u00a0The Cursed Child<\/em>\u00a0hinges on two things that\u00a0leave me entirely cold: time travel and daddy issues. And, of course, it’s the script of a play, so\u00a0there’s an additional barrier to\u00a0emotional immersion as a reader. Which is not to say that a play can’t be emotionally engaging\u00a0just on the page: I’ve read at least three plays that I was enraptured by, though of course I’ve booklogged\u00a0none of them (M. Butterfly<\/em>, Angels in America<\/em>,\u00a0and\u00a0The Lady’s Not for Burning<\/em>;\u00a0I’ve been\u00a0fortunate enough to see the last two live after I read them). But\u00a0the format didn’t\u00a0give me the nudge I needed to get over\u00a0my\u00a0general lack of interest in the play’s topics.<\/p>\n

This all left me with plenty of mental space to be distracted by\u00a0several things that were mostly incidental to the plot but felt . . . gross.\u00a0Here are two super-tiny, entirely content-free examples: 1) stage directions reading, “It’s a lame trick. Everyone enjoys its lameness”; and 2) a location where magic is used “for fun”: ” . . . knitting wool is enchanted into chaos, and male nurses are made to dance tango.” Because 1) it would be cool if people didn’t use “lame” to mean<\/a> “weak or lousy” and 2) ha, ha, it’s so funny that\u00a0men<\/em> are forced<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0tango with\u00a0each other<\/em>! Are these incredibly small things? Yes. Are they entirely unnecessary? Yes.\u00a0Did they pull me out of a narrative that I already wasn’t engaged with? Yes. (There are bigger and more plot-critical things, too,\u00a0which I will put in a spoiler post.)<\/p>\n

In summary: if you don’t mind daddy issues and time travel, and if you really care a lot about the\u00a0family lives of some of the HP characters post-novels, this may be\u00a0for you. If you wanted a wider scope post-novels,\u00a0this is not.<\/p>\n

(I do think it would be interesting to see the play if only for how they manage the\u00a0considerable special effects necessary, however.)<\/p>\n

A spoiler post<\/a> follows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The library got me the newest installment in J.K. Rowling’s\u00a0Harry Potter saga, the script for the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, on its release, a bit to my surprise,\u00a0and\u00a0I opened it up\u00a0mostly because I couldn’t decide what else I was in the mood for, and I\u00a0figured\u00a0spoilers would be rampant soon enough. (This is … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Rowling, J.K., John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne: (08) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child<\/cite>“<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,110],"tags":[367,410,412],"class_list":["post-2186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harry-potter","category-plays","tag-rowling-j-k","tag-thorne-jack","tag-tiffany-john"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2433,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2186\/revisions\/2433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelypips.org\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}