I met Pepperdine’s James Thomas in Toronto just a few days after the publication of Deathly Hallows. I think I may have asked him during this conversation over breakfast if he would consider contributing his thoughts here at HogwartsProfessor. I know the Potter Pundits adventure at LeakyCauldron began soon after as did James’ published guides to the literary depths of the Hogwarts Saga. If you haven’t read Repotting Harry Potter: A Professor’s Book-by-Book Guide for the Serious Re-Reader or his Rowling Revisited: Return Trips to Harry, Fantastic Beasts, Quidditch, & Beedle the Bard, you’re overdue for a treat.

I’ve never given up on his joining us here and on MuggleNet academ
ia. Years of teasing, cajoling, out right begging were rewarded yesterday when James sent me his review of the Rehearsal draft script of a story Jo Rowling is said to have something to do with, Cursed Child. Enjoy!

Review of Jack Thorne’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

by James Thomas

I Don’t Know What It Is, But It’s Not the Eighth Harry Potter Book

A few weeks ago I was teaching in London only three miles from the theater where Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was to open.  Ten or twelve of my students went to see the play, and three of them experienced a Rowling sighting.  While I envied their having seen The Presence (as John Granger calls Her), I didn’t regret missing the performance and didn’t mind waiting a few more weeks to read the “Special Rehearsal Edition” of the play.  All my instincts and previous reading experience told me that whatever I was going to read by Jack Thorne wasn’t going to be an eighth Harry Potter book—no more than the wretched Go Set a Watchman is the second To Kill a Mockingbird.

In fact, having just sailed on another voyage back through the seven-and-only Potter books in my London class, I came away from the rough seas of Cursed Child a bit seasick.  This was an exercise in anticlimax, not unlike rereading Moby-Dick and then encountering Free Willy.  Books that have only one thing in common—whether Harry or whales—can differ in every other conceivable way—in tone, depth, style, and overall literary worth.  I’m certain that reading the play is a far cry from experiencing the wonders and pyrotechnics of the performance; but, having read more than my share of plays, I can also testify that a good play can radiate power and come to life on the page without the “bangs and smoke” of the stage. [Read more…]

As Hogpro readers know, the book that was waited for with such fanfare was the “rehearsal script” of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Changes may have already been made to the current version playing in London, and more will undoubtedly come about before the next big premiere, presumably in a year or two, on Broadway.

If I was a producer, there are multiple points I’d take out and at least three I’d add.

Parts to Reducto:

Swearing by Dumbledore’s name. If there is one thing all parties should agree on, 20-odd years after the battle of Hogwarts, it was that Dumbledore, no matter how respected, was an imperfect and highly flawed man. There is no way Harry’s family, or anyone else in the wizarding world, would be evoking his name as if he were some sort of canonized saint. And if one of his portraits overheard it, he’d tell them to knock it off; it’s the last thing in the world our dear departed Headmaster would want. He has only been deceased for twenty years or so; tt would be like a Republicans today walking around saying “Oh, thank Reagan the rain has stopped.” Besides, in the book epilogue, Ron said to Rose, “Thank God you’ve got your mother’s brains.” Not, “Thank Dumbledore you have your mother’s brains.” In short, there is no precedence for any witch or wizard to do this, so the script should lose it immediately.

Sappy relationship conversations. Part of what was great about the original 7 books is that people our Trio did not spend a lot of time discussing their friendship. We knew how much Ron and Hermione meant to Harry when he rescues them from the Black Lake, or uses his memories of them to summon his Patronus. Too often, the play drifts into sappy conversations rather than simply showing how strong a relationship is. The dialogue between Scorpius and Albus, for instances, has led multiple readers to speculate that they are “more than friends,” even though both clearly have crushes on girls.

A particularly bad example is Act 4, Scene 4, when Harry has the long chat with Dumbledore’s portrait, and yells at him for leaving him at Privet Drive, and his various other failings. Then they (figuratively) kiss and make up and tell each other how much they loved each other. That seemed out of place, especially after McGonagall had already reminded him (and us!), the portrait isn’t Dumbledore, it’s a shadow of Dumbledore, paint and memory. Harry should have made his peace with Dumbledore, and what he did and didn’t do for him back at King’s Cross. Rehashing all that with a painting, 22 years later, when he should be focusing on making peace with his son was a pointless distraction. Besides, Harry would never address the painting as “Dumbledore”— we’ve never seen him call his Headmaster anything but “Professor” to his face. [Read more…]