actual thoughts about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
I think that many reactions I've seen to these plays are centered around one complaint: this reads like bad fanfiction. Voldemort's secret daughter pretttttttty much takes that cake on that one, I really can't deny it. But even the fact that the story picks up after the epilogue and starts telling the story of new friends Albus and Scorpius is a plot that has been around since Deathly Hallows was published- the plays are full of story elements that fandom has seen before.
One thing that I keep circling back to is that while we've seen these plots before, there are some reasons for it- daughters and sons carrying on the legacies of their parents' mistakes (Delphi's whole THING, Albus leaping into action despite some sound advice from a more bookish friend) is basically one of the foundational tropes of storytelling. My bet is that Jack Thorne didn't read a lot of fanfiction when writing this play, because the story was written with JKR, who doesn't read fanfiction. He didn't know the extent of the pile of dog doo he was stepping into, if you'll pardon the metaphor.
Because at the heart of a LOT of my problems with this play is that it exists in this weird space, somewhere between author-produced canon and fan-centered fanfiction. The very best of what fanfiction does is come at canon from a place of love but with a very important different angle- fanfiction questions assumptions that the author has made, and says Can't we make a better story if we do THIS?
When the plot for these plays was worked out, it started out from the exact point of the DH epilogue, and it did so with JKR in the room. With the team assembled, they didn't question, didn't interrogate was passes as normal in the wizarding world in the way that we do as fans. They took her world at face value and kept moving ahead, creating a story that they wanted to see.
Should Tiffany or Thorne have said, you know what would be great, is if we could have some actual LGBTQ representation in this story?
Absofuckinglutely.
I read a lot of things through my queer goggles because I can't help it, that's how I see the world. I read the play in a flurry a week ago, and I haven't looked at it too closely since then, but yeah- I wanted to see some actual romance between Scorpius and Albus and it sucked when it didn't go there. I don't know how their scenes play under Tiffany's direction, and if they lean into queerbaiting or if they can take it to a different place- I don't remember if the text has flexibility to allow both interpretations or not. I know it would have been ten times better if the script just allowed somewhere, for SOMEONE, some representation that wasn't the heteronormative monogamy-fest that the epilogue gave me years ago. I also know that as soon as I saw Scorpius trying to ask out Rose, I was already wondering about ways to cut the scene or play it in a way that didn't feel like it undercut an existing friendship that could already have been romantic.
I want the text to do it for me, but one thing about theatre is that you can never discount the nonverbal choices. I recently watched a Taming of the Shrew that inserted an entire nonverbal romance plot between two characters (Bianca and Biondello, for the record) who BARELY SPEAK. On stage, you can make characters do whatever the hell you want them to do- sometimes in ways that fight the text and never work, and sometimes in ways that bring something to light from the text that might never otherwise have been seen. Some day, someone is going to run this play through an amazing lens and put all sorts of representation onto that stage, and it's going to knock an audience's socks off. That's what theatre can do- the door is rarely closed, and we can take the stage and make a story ours in a way that the playwright never intended.
Beyond that, the ridiculous plot didn't actually bother me? Here's the other thing I keep thinking about- Shakespeare's Pericles. It's not a play that is done often, and on the page, there are good reasons why. The plot is a GARBAGE FIRE of shipwrecks, visits to incest island, famines, tournaments, shipwrecks, PIRATES, sex work, births, deaths, and incredible resurrections. It's ludicrous. But I saw a production where the final reunion of a father and daughter and mother made me WEEP, because none of that mattered. What mattered was that Shakespeare knew how to play his cards, how to put the pieces in motion in a certain way so that the audience reached the catharsis he was going for.
For me, I'm a fan of both John Tiffany and Jamie Parker, the actor currently playing Harry. I can picture a world where those two artists can make me believe that Harry defeated Voldemort but never actually sorted out the trauma he'd been through for 16 years. Do I buy that Cedric Diggory would be the character who would turn to the dark side after being robbed of dignity? I don't know, but I like the idea of our choices and actions having weight and momentum in the world in ways that we don't understand, such that one change might change the world. Do I roll my eyes that Snape gets vindicated? Yeah, but again, that's what comes of writing a new story with the original author on your team- her vision is going to trump her cowriters'.
There's also a lot of weirdness where rules we know about the wizarding world get broken, but that's never been the sort of thing that's a deal breaker for me, personally. I find it frustrating, but clearly JKR didn't mind if polyjuice potion needs a lot longer to brew, etc, and details have never been a thing to phase me.
Honestly, huge gaping plot holes have never been a problem for me, either, in any story or medium, so long as there are good characters and emotional journeys and payoffs. For a lot of people, they read these scripts and see both the structural/detail issues and find a lack of character work and they nope out, and- I will NEVER fight you on that. Like what you like, and don't feel obligated to change your mind. To my view, I bet that a team of really good actors, designers, and directors can make the character side of this story SING. It's their job, and all you need to do is assemble the right team. Stories about parents and children working to understand each other is my kryptonite, y'all- I want to believe that this story works on stage, so I do.
Everyone's mileage is going to vary on this, because it's a hell of a polarizing thing. I absolutely get why a lot of people are going to hate this. I'm frustrated with the wasted opportunity, and would have loved to be in the room as the dramaturg, but I'm still excited about the theatrical possibility in this story. When I read it, I quickly decided to just roll with the wacky, and let the fanfiction absurdity wash over me. When this play comes to the US, you bet your buttons I'm going to be there, and I'll be waiting for the day when the fans get to take the reigns on their own productions, too. I wouldn't be this hopeful if this were a book, but it's NOT- it's a script waiting for a group of artists to put it on stage and fill it up with their art, and I can't wait to see what people do with it.