Review: A Condensed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Tour Across America

The sins of the father poison the characters in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, as adolescents lose their way due to mistakes or crimes of their family line, and parents discover their noxious decisions have led to their children’s failures. A continuation of the Harry Potter series, this long-running stage production (now on its first North American tour) combines action, a progress report on favored characters, and stage illusions that will astonish even the most sharp-eyed audience member.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, written by Jack Thorne, started its journey as a two-part drama (I reviewed it in 2019).  The current touring iteration, now playing at the Hollywood Pantages, is the now de rigueur condensed edition, which edited six hours of storytelling into a single evening that clocks in well under three. This version cuts some of the verbosity from which the original suffered, but it also loses necessary character development in act one, rendering it into a best-of reel instead of compelling drama. Act Two finds its balance and leads the audience to an exhilarating and tender conclusion.

In all versions, the Harry (John Skelley) we remember and adore has become a bit of a prat. As both the Head of Magical Law Enforcement and a father, he makes many of the mistakes that from a child would be permissible, but from an adult come off as impulsive and cold.

Nineteen years after the young heroes of Hogwarts vanquished the evil Lord Voldemort, Harry, his wife Ginny (Trish Lindstrom), and best friends Hermoine (Ebony Blake) and Ron Weasley (Matt Mueller) drop off the next generation of students, James (Caleb Hafen) and Albus Severus Potter (Emmet Smith) plus Rose Weasley (Naiya Vanessa McCalla), at the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9¾. While James and Rose appear to be chipped off the block, Albus feels isolated by his family and fears he could never compete with his father, “the boy who lived.” Confounding the family further, Albus has started a friendship with Scorpius (Aidan Close), the son of Harry’s nemesis, Draco Malfoy (Benjamin Thys). But rumor has it, Scorpius’s real father is someone even more nefarious.

Smith and Skelley, as the estranged son and father, work well together, managing to project abject frustration, but underlying love. The script does not give Lindstrom much to do. She feels like the wife in a 60s sitcom, instead of a powerful witch and valued mother.

Mackenzie Lesser-Roy is hysterical as the flirty, overly sensitive ghost Myrtle, who still holds a tight candle for the much older Harry. Julia Nightingale is also intriguing as the boys’ new friend, a family member of someone from their parents’ past, who becomes a catalyst for the action.
Both Blake and Mueller have some of the attributes of their younger selves, but while Blake is caustic and Muelle is clumsy and hapless, they don’t endear themselves to the audience the way Emma Watson and Rupert Grint did in the movies. Close is too exaggerated in act one, but eventually manages to make his deep connection with Smith authentic and endearing.

The play’s real star is Jamie Harrison and his eye-deceiving illusions. Even in the condensed version, actors flip upside down, get sucked through tiny boxes, change costumes (by Katrina Lindsay) in a snap, and shoot fire from their wands. The entire stage vibrates visually when characters time-travel (the Hogwarts set is by Christine Jones). The massive, ghostly tormentors dwarf the actors below as they take up most of the upper stage, floating down to engulf their victims. John Tiffany’s production is a feast for anyone who adores magic.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was created for Potter fans to reunite with the characters they read about from an early age.  With so much editing between the first and latest versions, some of the soul has been removed, as has the clarity for those not fully immersed in the Potter-verse. Hopefully, for those who left the theater confused, another draft could return some of the essential moments that have been cut. The story and characters have too much compelling promise for this to be the final attempt.