In an oversaturated landscape of Harry Potter spinoff content, the touring “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” stage play reinvents familiar magic for theater and reignites the magical universe for fans.
The Emerson Colonial Theater was transformed into the wizarding world from the moment actors took to the stage. Picking up where the final book’s epilogue left off, audiences are thrust immediately back into King’s Cross Station and energetic charge into Platform 9 3/4. Directed by John Tiffany, every aspect of the show comes off highly intentioned, rehearsed and refined.
Act I takes an aggressive pace from the start, whizzing through the main characters’ first year at Hogwarts. This pacing in the writing of the play is understandable — it has a nearly three-hour-long runtime as is — but it made the exposition feel rushed at times.
Despite being a play, not a musical, the music selection for these transition scenes, paired with crisp and visually interesting choreography, carried an elegant and engaging flow to the entire show. Composed by Imogen Heap and sampling some of Heap’s most popular tracks, the score is energetic and distinctly unique from the film franchise’s sound, a necessary and captivating change.
The scene changes and the staging of every transition were deeply intentional and, at moments, managed to outshine the spoken dialogue of the performance. Some of the most striking visuals came from the ensemble’s empowered strides and flourishes of capes while they made set pieces seem to appear out of thin air. A suspension of disbelief was hardly necessary, since the performance naturally managed to leave the audience aghast and unaware of how certain stunts were pulled off.
Several of the set elements, from perfectly balanced lighting to the turntable floor, brought the magic of the “Harry Potter” universe to life on the Colonial stage. The use of lighting was key in both stunts and transitions, once concealing crew members who lifted Harry Potter (Nick Dillenberg) and Draco Malfoy (Ryan Hallahan) in a wand battle scene through an impressive series of stunts and contributing to a sensory experience of the characters traveling through time by seemingly warping the solid back wall of the stage.
The storytelling that transcended dialogue was some of the most impressive. Albus Potter and Scopius Malfoy, the centerpiece of a veiled queer love story throughout the script, don’t exhibit much chemistry in their dialogue, but the reality of their chemistry shone through in a transition scene. The moving staircases of Hogwarts came to life on the stage as David Fine (Scorpius Malfoy) and Adam Morrison (Albus Potter) scaled levels of emotional turmoil through glances, physical discomfort and tense pacing across the set.
One of the most impressive sequences involved characters Albus Potter, Scorpius Malfoy and Delphi Diggory (Julia Nightingale) transforming into familiar characters Harry Potter, Ron Weasley (Matt Harrington) and Hermione Granger (Rachel Leslie) using a polyjuice potion from the original book series. The transformation required the actors to take on a thrashing physicality, but also the costumes to shift from one actor to another seamlessly.
Accompanied by a personified bookshelf that swallowed actors whole on stage and became a character of its own, the practical stage-magic of author J.K. Rowling’s fictional world was vibrant and in full force. From horror-inspiring dementors rigged from the stage’s rafters to instant backdrop changes from the Forbidden Forest to Hogwarts’s Great Hall, the production’s stage managers, lighting designers and whole behind-the-scenes crew truly deserve to take a bow.
The spirited world that Harry Potter and its characters reside in was etched in every cast member’s performance, but Fine stoodout as the heartbeat of this story. With an expertise for the comedy that comes with a misfit Scorpious, he enveloped the audience in warm laughter and cheers from his first appearance to final bows.
His character inherently fills the shoes of comedic relief, but his acting skills were at their most raw and robust when he would be in near-tears fighting the death of his mother or the loss of his friends. Accompanied by Hallahan’s take on the iconic Draco, their performance is a beautiful one that has the young hero from the original book series taking on a new set of challenges, the largest being navigating being a parent to a child as complicated as he once was.
The story of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” is centered around the original series’ Time Turner, which presents difficulties for the play’s plot and characters. Mainly due to Rowling’s own writing, the story sometimes harps too much on fan service for the most loyal wizard-loving audience members. Although a trip down memory lane through moments like “The Tri-Wizard Tournament” or Hermione and Ron’s banter-filled romance were a welcome addition at times, the nearly three-hour run time could have benefited from focusing on the present story rather than living in the past plots that have had their moment on the page and silver screen.
The resurrection of beloved characters did work in certain scenes, like Albus and Scorpius’ introduction to Moaning Myrtle. A drop in the wizarding world’s canon, Myrtle, played by Mackenzie Lesser-Roy, made a splash in the first act, leaving audiences roaring with laughter and solidifying one of the most memorable scenes from the entire performance.
“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” at the Emerson Colonial Theatre is sure to give everyone, from the most diehard fan to the newest, a magical experience. Through dazzling set elements, special effects and highly detailed choreographed movements, the emotional and thought-provoking tale of the next generation of Hogwarts’ children grappling with their parents’ reputations and the growing pains even Muggle kids face is told beautifully by the talented touring cast.
