:::: One Part FANDOM RETROSPECTIVE, One Part ANALYSIS ::::
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play that premiered in London, 2016. It was met with praise by theatergoers and disdain, even hatred, by those who read the script. Today, there is a...
Our connection with the wizarding world of J.K. Rowling is what it is because Harry Potter was never a book about magic.
It's a moral story about the troubles and triumphs of its characters, told in subtleties across hundreds of thousands of words (with spells, awesome spells). No matter how good this new story could have been, the truth is it simply could never compete. And their attempts at reconstructing that "magic" into a single, concentrated story came across a little heavy-handed. Which is why the original concept of exploring Harry's early years at the Dursleys made perfect sense for the stage. It would have been an exploration into the nature and eccentricities of familiar characters, instead of a time travel epic that struggled under its own weight, while trying desperately to contend with its predecessors.
Scope
Beyond that, the story felt limited in its scope. As a play, you don't want to lose your audience by keeping your characters in static locations, but there is only so much you can do in terms of set design. It's advantageous, almost necessary, to have similar locations and minimal scene changes. I'll say, I am impressed by how much they pulled off, but the play had boundaries and you could feel them in the repetition.
Format
Most important, though, is that ALL of Rowling's dedicated fanbase wanted to experience this story, but were not able to see a live performance due to financial or geographical constraints. Since there was no theatrical release of the stage play, 99% of Potterheads could only experience this through the script book. That instantly put us at a loss, since plays are a visual, interactive medium, meant to tell a story in person. Unfortunately, our impressions could only be based on the text. It's then safe to say that the majority of these fans were reading a script for the first time, which is a completely different experience than embedding yourself directly into the pages of JKR's complex, multilayered novels. There was no fanciful description and detail. It was nearly entirely made up of dialogue. And since the play could only be read and not acted, with the proper beats and measured performance, the scenes that were already fast-paced felt jarring to the reader.
Connectivity
This was all guaranteed to create a sense of general disappointment and malaise, igniting in us a realization that what we were reading was not a Harry Potter book.
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